


Blood Ties

by TiniBopper



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ancestors, Doomed Timelines, Drama, Dream Bubbles, Execution, Family, Gen, Growing Up is Hard, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know what else to tag this as so, Post-Scratch, Slavery, Time Shenanigans, it's hard and no one understands, oh yeah, tw: canon character/OC ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 00:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiniBopper/pseuds/TiniBopper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deviates from p=007163, after we meet Kankri.</p><p>  <i>Everything is familiar and always the same, and has been the same for over two billion sweeps that you’ve spent in death, from the birth of this new universe to today. In all that time, there are a few things that are consistent and never going to change.</i></p><p>  <i>One, your name is Kankri Vantas, and you are the alpha timeline version of yourself.</i></p><p>  <i>Two, there are a few versions of you from doomed timelines that have been in the dream bubbles for as long and longer than you have been here. There aren’t very many of them, and none of them come from timelines that occurred after your team Scratched your session and Meenah killed you all. This is [...] expected, since the only doomed versions that can appear in the dream bubbles are those that died, so only those that came before the scratch show up. It’s unheard of for a dead troll’s doomed timelines to show up in the dream bubbles again, because that would require them to die again.</i></p><p>  <i>The funny thing about doomed selves, however, is the way that they simply appear.</i></p><p>  <i>And where they appear, things are never quite the same as they were ever again. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The dream bubbles are an amalgam of light and colors and darkness and void, all at once.

There are high precipices over black nothingness, and bright light filtering down from nowhere over ethereal ground that you have walked a hundred thousand times before. Everything is familiar and always the same, and has been the same for over two billion sweeps that you've spent in death, from the birth of this new universe to today. In all that time, there are a few things that are consistent and never going to change.

One, your name is Kankri Vantas, and you are the alpha timeline version of yourself. You're a social justice aficionado and you have a very high perception of yourself. You're celibate, but that kind of never bothered you since you're dead and therefore you don't really have to worry about the urges of the body anymore. This works in your favor since you'd really rather focus your attention on forging and perfecting your opinions, speeches, and the way you interact with others. Not that you interact with them much, since they all seem to avoid you like the plague when they can, but it's really their loss. You have a lot of important stuff to say and they're the ones who aren't listening.

Two, there are a few versions of you from doomed timelines that have been in the dream bubbles for as long and longer than you have been here. You like to argue with them sometimes, they prove very good debate partners with subtly differing opinions from your own. There aren't very many of them, and none of them come from timelines that occurred after your team Scratched your session and Meenah killed you all. This is, again, expected, since the only doomed versions that can appear in the dream bubbles are those that died, so only those that came before the scratch show up. It's unheard of for a dead troll's doomed timelines to show up in the dream bubbles again, because that would require them to die again. Double death is a thing, and it's very much more permanent than the first one.

So you never see any versions of you that are actually from recently doomed timelines. You've been 9 Beforan solar sweeps for as long as you can remember, and all the other iterations of you are either right around that age, very slightly older (but never reaching to ten solar sweeps), or younger. It's something that has been that way for two million sweeps, and you kind of figure it will remain that way for two million more.

The funny thing about doomed selves, however, is the way that they simply appear. They seem to flicker into existence in the dream bubbles, the age at which they died, at the precise moment when their timeline first veered off. But considering that you've not had any new doomed timeline selves showing up, you've never actually seen this happen with you or any of your compatriots. You've seen some others, in the recent times; doomed selves of those who had taken yours and your compatriots' places after the Scratch. You've met a few of them, talked to them a couple of times, but they never seem to want to continue talking to you after the first conversation.

(In response to this, you've taken to trying to fit as much conversation into one conversation as you can. If they're never going to talk to you again, best to make the most of it.)

Even more recently, those trolls that were still alive in your post-Scratch game's world have been drifting through the void, through the dream bubbles you inhabit. During this time, you met Karkat.

Your dancestor.

He seems receptive enough while you talk to him (at him) to him. You've actually managed to have a second, and even a third conversation with him, though as time goes on it seems like he's less and less thrilled with the things you could teach him. You kind of have this sinking feeling in your stomach that it's not going to last though.

You're in the middle of your fourth conversation with him when that feeling strikes, hard. It's actually enough to make you take a breath, to pause what you were saying. The air has shifted, something has changed.

Karkat's eyes focus behind you, and he goes the strangest pasty shade you think you've ever seen on him. Out of pure academic curiosity, you turn around yourself.

If your heart had been beating, it would have stopped. Standing there behind you are two forms that _most certainly_ were not there before, one of which your mind is frantically telling you _it shouldn't be possible_ that it's standing there.

Behind you, the sight that Karkat saw, are two trolls from a doomed timeline. Their eyes are just as white as your own are, they're both taller than you. One of them is Karkat, and one of them, you can already tell, is you.

And that shouldn't be possible.

But impossibility hasn't stopped what is truly there. Standing there, looking down at themselves and taking in their new status, are undoubtedly you and Karkat from a doomed timeline. They're both much older than you and he are at the moment, suggesting that whatever timeline veered off at this point in time lasted for a while.

Your other self looks to be somewhere over ten and a half sweeps old, but not quite eleven sweeps, the oldest you've ever seen an iteration of yourself, and there are scars littering his skin that you've never had before. He's not wearing your signature red sweater, but instead seems content with a less flashy dark gray shirt and pants that actually rest around his hips. It's not quite a skin tight ensemble but it certainly shows off musculature that both shocks and perplexes you. No matter how you consider it, he has far too many muscles, more than you think you could ever acquire in just a sweep and a half. And pairing that with the scarring gives you a very uneasy feeling that this you, this impossible version of you that has found some unbelievable way to exist, has gone through far more than you would like to think you could survive. (Well, obviously he's not survived it, of course, but the fact remains.)

The other Karkat is older as well, looking to be about eight and a half sweeps or maybe even nine, the same age as you are right now. You think that if he were still alive his eyes would be showing the bright, brilliant carmine that runs through your veins by that age. His skin is littered with scars as well, far more numerous than your counterpart who already has scars far too numerous for you to wish to have an actual count. This version of Karkat seems almost made of scar tissue, tougher and leaner and, yes, there are those same muscles on his form that bespeak trials you don't want to imagine. Both of them have longer, shaggy hair that curls around at the bases of their skulls, a few tendrils even swirling over their necks.

The Karkat behind you, the Alpha Karkat, does the smart thing in this situation.

He absconds.

You're kind of still stuck staring at the impossibility before you, speechless for once. They finish their self-examinations and turn toward each other, sharing a chuckle at some inside joke. You kind of doubt that you and Karkat could get close enough for inside jokes unless you were under the most dubious of circumstances.

"Well, we both knew this would happen eventually." The Karkat in front of you says dryly, in a tone that you don't think you've ever heard your Karkat use before. This Karkat, this older version of the troll you just recently met, has a tiredness that permeates his voice even behind the arid tone, one that gives his words a bitter undertone.

"Such is the circumstance of a doomed timeline." Your other self nods, using the same tired, bitter tone. It seems so incredibly wrong to you, the shortness of his comment, the hundreds of thousands of things left unsaid, the lack of clarity of it all. But the thing that bothers you the most is his voice and how different it's become from yours.

You're still staring when they notice you. The older version of Karkat (only slightly younger than you are now, it pains you to realize) gives a movement of his head that you think accompanies the rolling of one's eyes, with only the lack of irises and pupils detracting from it.

"Hey look, it's old, Insufferable you."

Even as the recognition of what his words mean reaches your disbelief addled thinkpan and makes you start to bristle, your other self speaks up, sentence far too clipped.

"Alpha me, you mean." You really want to punch him, punch this version of you that has no right to exist by the laws of paradox space that you've come to expect. This doppelganger that dares to wear your face and yet be so different. You're already confused about his existing, did he have to go and be so… so… not you?

"Yeah, whatever." Older Karkat moves his head in that eye rolling movement again. As one, they both seem to come to the conclusion that you're not worth dealing with and they turn, and start to walk away, already talking about other things as they go to explore the dream bubbles properly.

Throughout the entire encounter, you had sat there staring like a fish out of water. Now, you're alone and confused and you're starting to question everything you've been taking for granted for two million sweeps.

It's not a pleasant feeling.

 

As more time passes, you're distressed to find out that this new older version of you has gained a bit of infamy among your friends and compatriots, but not the bad kind of infamy that you seem to have. He has your talking problem in complete reverse – while everyone seems to think you talk too much, this new version of you seems to talk too little. More than one of your friends has asked him how he came to be in the dream bubbles, asking about the double-death-and-yet-not-gone bit. It's an indirect way to ask about his timeline, and what happened in it.

But all he ever says in response is 'Shenanigans', with a sad sort of smile.

You surreptitiously watch him from afar, him and the doomed Karkat with whom he appeared. The more you watch, the more confused you feel.

The two of them are close, oftentimes just sitting off alone together. There are times when you watch them from a bit away, and note that they don't seem to need to speak to each other for comfort to be understood.

It leaves a strange feeling in your gut that you know, _know_ that they're comforting each other, the Karkat comforting him more than your other self comforting the Karkat. It only reinforces the feeling that they've gone through something you don't ever wish to go through.

But even though you're sure that they've gone through something that dramatic, they don't seem at all bitter about what they went through. On the contrary, sometimes you find them staring back at you, and you get the strangest feeling that they wish their timeline could have been the alpha timeline instead. But not for the fact that they died.

Being a Seer of Blood is very confusing to you at times, this innate understanding of the bonds between trolls, of the emotions that tie people and trolls together. You've been avoiding talking to them for a week now, sticking to observing from a safe distance, but that doesn't stop you from just inherently _knowing_ things you don't want to know about this strange version of you.

The thing that you find the most off putting is the fact that this other version of you has become so sought out so quickly. Your friends talk about him more and more with the more time that goes by.

_How do you think he managed to get around double death?_

_He doesn't talk about much at all. He's so different from the Kankri we're used to._

_I wonder what happened to him._

And it isn't that you're jealous or annoyed. Honestly. You just wish you could understand yourself why this other version of you is so different, why he's so unsettling to you.

 

The first time you and your new other self meet without anyone around, you can swear that you can feel the tension like a knife at the back of your neck. For a long moment after you bump into each other in a dream bubble to yourselves, he simply seems to be staring at you. You return the favor.

"Was I ever that _young_?" he asks, more to himself than anything, you think. It's not a very funny joke, considering, yes, he had been this young, had been for over two million sweeps. But something in his intonation strikes you as odd.

He's not just talking about your physical age. Up close you can see the shadows of his eyes, the way that the stark white seems darker than it should be. That overlying sadness that seems to be in everything he does and says; it sends a shiver down your spine and you know that this version of you… in comparison to him, you're shockingly immature.

"You must have been." Your voice automatically takes on a derisive note, and in the nanosecond that follows the words falling from your mouth, you immediately feel the desire to smash your head against something hard. That could be taken in such a triggering way…! But your other self only chuckles.

"I suppose that's a shitty way to start a conversation."

You're appalled. Such casual language—!

The doomed version of you gives an exasperated smile, one you're fairly sure has never been on your face before at all, ever, and shakes his head. "You're so… unaware." His voice, so like yours and yet so different, is incredulous, soft, about as far from your usual proud nitpicky tone as it can get. But the thing that scares you the most is the look hovering behind the blank whiteness of his eyes. It's… it's like he found something worth dying for and then lost it again.

It scares you to know that this could have been you – that this _was_ you in a different timeline – this older, tired… veteran.

The word veteran fits him.

"I'm sorry if this is strange." He's talking slowly, like he's taking time to pick his words carefully. "This probably seems like it shouldn't be possible to you. I know it would seem that way to me, if I were in your shoes." He looks around, once, as if avoiding meeting your eyes, but the second you think he might be doing that he's staring straight at you again and tying your stomach in uneasy knots. "But I can personally assure you that it's possible, and… just…" he looks away again, worrying at his lip with his teeth as he thinks.

"What happened…? I apologize if I'm being too forward, I-" the words are falling from your lips before you can stop them, and that tired, sad smile is on his face again.

"A lot of pain." He cuts you off, voice soft but still holding a strange kind of power that makes you snap your mouth shut. "A lot of pain and a lot of struggle. Something you probably wouldn't want to go through. I didn't want to go through it while it was happening but…" he sighs, "looking back; I don't wish to forget any of it. I don't wish that any part of it didn't happen."

You shift on your feet, standing a good three inches shorter than this new version of you, this you that is so much stronger than you, physically, mentally. You think that's why you're so uneasy around him. Not out of fear of him hurting you, though that's entirely a possibility, but out of uncomprehending respect. You… You want to know what this you has gone through, to become that strong, but at the same time you're terrified that when you know, you'll never be able to look at yourself the same way again.

He seems to know what you're feeling. After doing a strange walk around motion with his hands tangled in his hair, he lets out another heaving breath and drops into a sitting position, legs dangling over an edge out into the nothingness. You hesitantly sit down beside him when he gestures to the spot next to him, and wait.

"…you want to know what happened?" he asks rhetorically. You nod anyway. "You'll need to promise to hear and see the _whole_ story." You nod again. He gives a lopsided grin that, again, seems so out of place on your own facial features, and then brushes aside a bit of the longer hair away from his neck.

You have to fight down the sick feeling when you see the numbers and letters, tattooed over his jugular, a code that will mar his skin forever, even in death. _FF00001_. You recognize the first six letters and numbers as the hex code for the color you type with.

"My Karkat has this same code, same place, but it ends with 2." The casual way he just claims the Karkat from the timeline he was in as his own sends another jolt of strange emotion through your gut. You note that his eyes are watching your reaction, and you try not to show how sickened you are by the tattoo, how confused you are by him in general and the things he does. "It's the mark of the slave trade on Alternia."

"But… how…?" You're quite close to utterly speechless. "How can you even _be here_?"

He looks away from you again, out into the nothingness of the void that seems so close. He kicks his legs a couple of times, putting his chin in his hands. "To be honest," he finally starts, "I don't know. I don't know how it all played together to start everything. I don't know why things happened the way they did in the beginning."

This strikes you as the most wrong thing you've ever heard, the straw that broke the humpbeast's back. This can't be you. This can't be any kind of iteration of you because you've been proud in your knowledge of many subjects for so long that it seems impossible for you to ever even consider admitting that you don't know something.

"And I know what you're probably thinking, that I'm not you. And I guess in a way I'm not. But the more concise way of saying it would probably be that _you_ aren't _me_. Yet. I was you once upon a time, I'm… I'm something you could be, but you're probably not ever going to be." He frowns, and in the simple quirk downwards of his lips you can sense an infuriatingly familiar ideal of disappointment. You feel the urge to punch him again.

"Why tell me? Why now, after everyone's been asking you?" Your voice is quieter, to match his quiet tone in a way of mocking it.

Another exasperated grin, and your urge to punch him rises. "Because, the one I was waiting to ask me hadn't asked yet." It takes you a second to realize that _he_ was waiting for _you_ to ask. He didn't want to just tell the story when someone asked where you might hear it. He wanted you to want to know.

He wanted you to be willing to hear it _all_. And knowing that made you realize that there would undoubtedly be times you would want to back out. And you had already promised to hear the entire story.

You feel very stupid for just a moment. Very stupid, and very afraid.

"But that doesn't matter." He shakes his head again, and his feet kick out a bit more, "You want to know what happened, right?"

And you want to punch him and you want to run away, but you want to know so much more.

"Yes."

"Then be warned." He gives that exasperated grin again, waving a hand and forming some thirty bubbles of memories in front of them, "It's a really long story."


	2. Chapter 2

"It starts with the conversation you were having when my Karkat and I appeared. You hadn't noticed, but... well. He tired of us rather quickly." The elder reached forward to touch a dream memory bubble, popping it and making the scene around them seep into the memory itself. Kankri looked around uneasily; though he knew how these kinds of bubbles worked it still felt strange to be in an others memories.

Even stranger, though, were the facts that these were his own, though they didn't play out as _he_ personally remembered, and he was watching them with himself.

"It starts with your lecture, and what would have happened if we hadn't appeared when we did. My Karkat and I have sort of figured out that our doomed timeline, while it wasn't allowed to make rippling changes to the rest of the timelines, was... required, so to speak, to ensure that the alpha timeline proceeded as planned. Basically, our timeline needed to exist to ensure that it didn't exist."

"That doesn't make any sense..."

"It makes sense to a time player, which we're not. Talk to Dave if you get the chance, he helped explain it to us the last time he was in the bubbles, he can explain it to you. But just listen, and watch." The elder pointed toward the younger version of himself, the offshoot Kankri, and put a finger to his lip to mime 'quiet'.

And watching himself talk, and actually paying attention to Karkat's features, Kankri could see when things started to go downhill, at a very fast pace.

"Our story starts," the elder said softly, "with a fist fight."

* * *

"Oh my god, _just shut up!_ "

The blow left a ringing in Kankri's ears, a fine reddish purple bruise forming on his cheek where Karkat's right hook had landed. His teeth felt like they were going to rattle out of his head, and he felt for a second that he might have gotten a minor concussion from the blow. Everything had a sort of fuzzy quality to it for a few seconds while he gingerly touched his cheek, wincing.

Karkat's face had turned stony, over the course of the last few moments of the conversation (lecture). Kankri blinked owlishly for a second, trying to understand what had happened. Trying to understand why Karkat had done what he did.

"N-Now Karkat, I know that you might have just forgotten yourself, but physical violence can be very-"

The fist connected with his face again, leaving another darkening mark and, yes, he was fairly sure he had a concussion now. It had also managed to knock him off of his feet onto the ground.

"I said shut up!" Karkat's voice was growled, full of ferocity and ferality that honestly scared Kankri for a moment. Scrambling backwards away from the younger troll, Kankri tried to placate the other again - more words to fan the flames, though he didn't realize just how much he was infuriating the other. Karkat followed his retreat, face darkening even further, hands curled into fists.

"P-Please, Karkat, you really ought to calm down, you're being completely irrational, pardon me for possibly abusing my privilege-"

"For _fuck's_ sake!" Karkat dropped in a controlled fall to land on top of Kankri, pinning him down and pushing his shoulders to the ground. Kankri's scramble had brought him dangerously close to the edge of their dream bubble, where one of the precipices dropped off into the nothingness. His shoulders were pressed to the edge, head hanging off into the ether, and he was afraid.

"K-Karkat, please-"

"You might be the only fucking troll I've met who literally does not know how to listen!" Karkat's voice was low, dangerous. Kankri could feel his own face paling to a pasty shade, every instinct in his body screaming at him to fight back, react, do _something_. But all he could do was quiver and try not to panic, staring upward at the snarling face above him.

* * *

"But why would he do that?"

The memory helpfully paused itself, allowing the elder to look around at the alpha. His face was unaffected, almost amused but at the same time not quite amused. After a second of considering his words, he began to speak.

"We are... well, I've grown out of it, but I was and you kind of still are... infuriating."

"What?! I'm trying to make things better for everyone!"

A quirk upward of the lip. "But he had a point."

"What point?"

"You don't listen. I _didn't_ listen. It wasn't something we did or do."

Silence.

Gently, "Going to try listening now?"

A sullen nod.

* * *

After a few terrifying seconds, Karkat's hands loosened from around Kankri's shoulders and he let out a breath in an annoyed manner. "Fuck you." he muttered, and moved to get up off of the elder ghost. The movement, however, caused new problems in the form of imbalance.

Kankri's shoulders slipped farther off the edge and after a second of flailing and panicking he managed to grab hold of Karkat's arm again to keep himself from falling off. A little screechy whine pulled from his mouth the more he felt himself slipping, and his grip on Karkat had pulled the other off balance as well, bringing the other down on top of his chest

and then his shoulders weren't touching anything

and neither was his back

and they were falling

falling into darkness.

_Oh god._

* * *

"Oh god."

The memory froze in place again, and the elder looked around to the alpha once more. He didn't speak for the first few moments, just watched the emotions and realizations play across the other's face.

"But no one has ever... the dream bubbles, we all... no one's ever..."

"Fallen out of one?" the quiet voice of the elder said slowly. "Into the void?"

"How did you..."

"Watch."

* * *

_Oh god, oh god, oh god._

The panic that sparked through his system was reflected a hundred times over on Karkat's face, both of them falling down into nothingness too fast to even think about stopping. The glow of the bubble they had just been in, the precipice they had just been on, faded into nothingness until the only thing that wasn't blackness around them was each other.

Karkat's eyes glowed yellow, Kankri's glowed white. Both sets of them were full of panic. By the time the 'falling' sensation had stopped and changed into the 'floating' sensation, everything except their eyes was incomprehensible, impenetrable black.

Their hands were wrapped around one another's arms tight enough to crack bones. The pure, echoing silence around them was terrifying, but even more terrifying was the sensation of tendrils in the blackness, wrapping around them both, working under their fingers and around their waists and necks.

The pulling came with a harsh jolt of pain in both of their guts, and reflexively their hands tightened. They were the only thing either of them could see, their eyes, in an endless expanse of pure blackness, and they had no plans on being pulled apart at that moment. Kankri pulled at his legs, struggling against the tendrils wrapped around them. He could vaguely hear Karkat grunting in effort, muffled as if through a pillow, and when their knees banged together he realized that Karkat had been fighting to free his legs as well. On instinct, Kankri tangled his leg around one of Karkat's, hooking their arms together more firmly and tugging the other closer in the blackness.

They couldn't last like this, they couldn't last long. The tendrils were stronger than they were, eventually they would wear them down. Eventually they'd be pulled apart.

The choked gasp of air that came from Karkat accompanied a widening of his eyes, and Kankri felt the panic of the moment intensify. Karkat was still alive, but if he died out here he would never make it to the dream bubbles before they killed him again. He was already dead, he wouldn't get a chance, but he had to protect the one who still had a life-

Had to do something-

- _something_ -

 _But what can I do?!_ his eyes closed tightly, cutting everything into blackness, and he heard Karkat give a terrified whine that he was sure no one had ever heard from the other before. As much as he didn't want to, he forced his eyes open again, listening to the other's struggles to breathe against the tendril that had tightened around his neck.

Karkat's eyes were locked on his, like he was the last thing keeping him from going mad from the horrorterror's touches. Kankri knew that the younger was the last thing for him.

Had to do something.

_Need a way out. You're a Seer, SEE SOMETHING!_

* * *

"See something. Anything. A way out." the alpha was stiff as a board, knees hugged to his chest and shoulders shaking with tension as he watched the scene with wide blank eyes. The elder put a hand on his shoulder, a gentle gesture, and continued watching in silence.

* * *

He narrowed his eyes, but didn't close them all the way so Karkat wouldn't panic, and focused with everything he had into the two white sensory organs. _See something, anything, anything that can get us out of here..._

_I'm the Seer of Blood. I understand affinities. But I have to be able to do something else too..._

And as he watched, as he focused, he began to do something else. He began to see something else. Little twisting strands of different colored string, surrounding them like a spider web, a climbing rope if he could grab the right one that wouldn't break under his fingers. A thin, nearly translucent mutant red string linked from his left thumb to Karkat's, who had an even thinner and nearly nonexistent one also attached to it. There was a second string attached to him as well, of the same shade, but this one was looped around his wrist and looked stronger than the other two. A stronger connection.

He let go of Karkat with one hand and wrapped his fingers around that string. _Lead us out to safety._

The sense of movement returned, a sharp jerk from one side toward the other end of the string he had grabbed. He kept his legs tangled in Karkat's, his arm around the smaller troll's waist as it pulled them both out of the entanglement of black tendrils and through the void into emptiness, eyes narrowed against the sharp shock of pain in the center of his mind.

* * *

The memory fuzzed, returning them both to their spot on the edge of a dream bubble themselves. As soon as they were out of it, the alpha scooted back farther into the dream bubble, away from the edge, and bit his lip.

"Why did it fuzz out? Why did it end there?"

"That was just the first memory." the elder smiled slightly, kicking his legs over the open emptiness again. "And that was where I passed out from exertion. We'd need to find Karkat - my Karkat - to find out exactly what happened after that point."

"So that's why you don't... know..."

"How things conspired, yes."

"What were those strings?"

An amused smile broke out on the other's face. "Come now, can't you figure it out? You're very proud of your knowledge over many subjects."

Kankri, the alpha Kankri, let out an annoyed huff but refrained from snapping back. Idly, while he thought, he watched the other still sitting at the edge of the dream bubble, as if he wished to fall off again but dared not to. "...something related to being a Seer of Blood." he hazarded, pursing his lips when the other nodded and gestured for him to keep going.

"Seeing, obviously. But... blood..." he tapped his chin. "...the ones hooked on to myself and Karkat... the three main ones were all bright candy red. One between me and him, one between him and someone else, and one between me and someone else that was different from both the others..."

"Keep going."

"They're the same color as our blood. And only two trolls have that blood color, me and him. So where were the ones going off of us going to?"

"To the same troll." The elder grinned, "You're getting there."

"But there can't be another troll! We're the only two in existence, in this uni...verse... oh." his eyes widened in realization. "And that's why..."

"Yours was different. Ours, was different, I should say. Yes."

"But he..."

"We're in the void, distance and time is the same thing. Go in the right direction long enough..."

"...or follow a strong enough lead there..."

"...and you'll reach anywhere in all of time and space." the other grinned again, "How's that for a first lesson!"

"So you and he... you found...?"

"I grabbed the string. The string led us to the general area of paradox space. Then it spit us out, mid-rebellion Alternia." The elder nodded slightly again, frowning slightly, "I can only see strings out here in paradox space, so we were kind of stuck once we were there."

"That still doesn't explain how you got around double death."

"Calm yourself, Kankri." the elder version of him chuckled in amusement, "All in good time. That part comes up next actually." He touched another bubble, popping it and letting the new information seep into the bubble around them. "Though as I said before, I don't know specifics. I doubt even my Karkat knows, it just seemed to... happen."

* * *

When the darkness finally lifted from the new memory, they were already in a shadowed enclave of overhanging rock. Kankri was laid out flat on his back near the back wall of the cave, while Karkat sat near the mouth with his sickles out, legs tucked underneath him. A quietness, but not a silence, echoed around them.

"Where... are we?" He asked, feeling the last dregs of panic from the void starting to pick up again and burn anew. Nothing was familiar. It wasn't a dream bubble. There were smells here - dream bubbles didn't seem to have smells.

"Be quiet." Karkat's voice was murmured, and he didn't turn from where he was looking out from their enclave. His muscles were tense, his knuckles lighter than normal with the pressure he was holding his sickles.

"B-But-!"

"I said _be quiet_." Karkat's voice was harsh, but still very soft. "We're in a cave somewhere on Alternia, which shouldn't be possible since our universe was destroyed to make the Green Sun. Maybe we're in a timeline of Alternia that hasn't been destroyed yet out in the void, but that's the only explanation that makes sense since Alternia is the only planet I know of that has _lusii naturae_. Unless your crappy planet had them."

"N-No, those were introduced after the Scratch, we-"

"Shush."

The harsher tone cut Kankri off again, and he was honestly annoyed by how much Karkat was cutting him off. It was rude, and he was honestly half a second away from panicking and Karkat didn't seem to care one iota. "Look, Karkat, I'm tired of you and your inconsiderate, rude, triggering-"

"For _fuck's sake!_ When I say _be quiet_ I mean _don't make a fucking sound!_ " The hissed words were more frantic than the other ones had been, "There's a hunting lusus out there, do you want to get eaten-?" He cast a glance over his shoulder, eyes narrowed, before they widened again at something he had seen.

"...your eyes." he said slowly, "They're yellow and red. You're alive."

While Kankri brought a hand to his face in confusion, Karkat skittered one of his sickles over to the older so he could look in the polished metal before turning to stare out of the cave again, hand gripped more tightly on the second sickle he had. The sight of yellow and carmine in the polished steel only made Kankri's breathing go higher, faster, more frantic. _This is impossible._

Outside, the sleek off-white form that Karkat had seen raised it's head, snout scenting the air and lips curling back to show sharp, curved teeth. The dual sets of ears flickered from side to side, lupine musculature tensing as it prepared to move. Karkat tensed more, watching the ears flick from side to side, eyes flickering to the side as if to turn his head toward Kankri again.

Before he could say anything to make the other stop breathing so loudly, the wolf lusus had turned its head and started toward their cave at a pace too fast to consider running away.

At the same time as it started moving, Karkat pushed to his feet, movements just as fluid and combat-ready as the lusus' were. He shifted his grip on the sickle he had in his hand and rooted his feet, swinging his arm up in time with the wolf's leap toward him.

Claws extended, mouth open in a vicious snarl, every muscle primed for battle, the wolf lusus was twice the size of Karkat. They crumpled down in one big pile of white fur, muscle, and sharp points.

* * *

"Oh god!" the alpha Kankri yelped in time with his counterpart in the memory, just before the memory itself paused and the elder burst into fond laughter. The younger started pacing over the hard ground that surrounded them in this bubble, hands tangled in his hair. "How can you just laugh like that?! They-"

"My Karkat obviously grew past this point, correct?"

"...oh." the younger shifted uneasily on his feet, looking embarrassed and uneasy.

"This is why you ought to listen first, and watch, before freaking out." The older put a hand on his shoulder again, gently pulling him down back to sitting with him, still chuckling slightly.

"So he..."

"He had his sickle. One of them, anyway." By the time alpha Kankri had settled into position next to the older, knees curled up to his chest and hiding his chin in between them, an almost fondness had formed on the other's face. "Which was really all he needed."

* * *

"Oh god!" he was on his hands and knees, hesitating between running forward to check on Karkat and running as fast as he could in the opposite direction. His muscles were tense for a full five seconds, waiting for the wolf lusus to move before he finally inched forward, seeing the tip of steel sticking out just off of the white beast's spine. His breathing was nearly hyperventilation but he managed to stay relatively calm as he inched to the motionless forms.

"K-Karkat?" he asked weakly, "Pleasedon'tbedead, pleasedon'tbedead, _please_ don'tbedead..."

"I'm not dead." the grunting came from under the massive white form, which was quickly turning a dark green from the blood being let out from the wound. "Now will you fucking get this stupid carnivorous howlbeast off of me?"

Kankri let out a small squeaking noise and moved to push against the heaving mass of fur and blood and sinewy muscle. With both of them shoving, Karkat was soon able to shimmy his way out from underneath it and sit down properly beside it. He sighed and glanced down at his bloodstained shirt, glancing outside again before starting to pull it off.

"Get my sylladex. I left it over there in the corner where you were." His sickle disappeared back into his strife specibus, the one that had been sitting near Kankri disappearing as well. He had probably just put them away to get them both together again.

The strife specibus was always separate from the physical sylladex, a game construct that had no physical form in the outside world, strife abstrati appearing at will with seemingly no logical explanation for where they were kept or how they were summoned. In human terms, it was the hammerspace - restricted to only the hammer. But as far as the normal sylladex was concerned, it had a physical form that varied between sylladices.

Kankri bit his lip as he crawled back over to where he had been laid out before, reluctantly wiping his hands on his bright red (not so bright anymore it was covered in dirt and now blood and strange shadowy stains that were probably from their procession through the void) sweater before picking up the tiny handheld device. It looked like a game player, with a screen and left and right arrow buttons on it, rather more simplistic than he had expected of Karkat, but to each his own. He tossed it over to the younger, who caught it almost without looking, starting to press through some of his items.

* * *

The alpha Kankri frowned slightly and tilted his head, considering the offshoot Karkat while he had his shirt off. It wasn't an appraising sort of look, but rather one that the older recognized.

"Alternian society in a nutshell. He had scars even before many of our challenges." the elder version of him nodded thoughtfully, an emotion held back behind his voice that made the younger look around sharply.

"You..."

"In due time." the older cut him off before he could speak up, holding up a hand and gesturing back to watching. His expression softened again, though, into a smile, "You'll see. You'll understand. Soon enough."

* * *

Karkat pressed the screen on his sylladex to select an item before pressing the searching buttons again several times. He went through that process a few times before stopping, and when he was done the items that his sylladex had ejected made Kankri's eyebrow raise.

There was a new shirt for him to change into, which he set aside rather than doing, a small tin of crystallized material Kankri vaguely recognized as coarse grain salt, a canteen that sloshed with liquid (water?), a bit of stone that he wasn't sure of the use for (flint, he learned later, to start a fire), a coarse, thick cloth, a miniature alchemiter (how had he made that in game?)with a few already punched captcha cards and a resizer addition on it, and a thin bladed knife that seemed in direct conflict with his sicklekind strife specibus.

Karkat dropped his sickles back out of his specibus and started carving up the howlbeast that had attacked him.

"W-Wha-What are you doing?" Kankri's eyebrows had to have disappeared into his hairline, as he watched the other methodically pulling and cutting away hair and skin, not seeming to care about the blood that was getting all over his hands and forearms. Karkat's expression hadn't changed the entire process, the lines of grim determination presiding over every movement.

"Cutting it up." Karkat said simply, "How else are we supposed to store it?"

"S-Store it?"

The younger flicked a gaze up at him, a questioning sort of exasperation. "We're on Alternia, numbnuts, not fucking Beforus. And here, this is what we call a windfall of _food._ So yeah, storing it." he gave Kankri the stink eye before continuing to cut up the massive beast, "We're fucking lucky I have some fucking survival basics and instincts, and that I had the _paranoia_ and took the time during _my session_ of the Game to make shit like I did. Otherwise we'd be fucking dead right now."

Kankri's mouth opened and closed a couple of times while he struggled to find words to express his emotions at that moment. Karkat, in the meanwhile, finished cutting the large chunks of muscle and fat off of the skeleton, setting the innards in a small pile to one side before taking the thin bladed knife and starting to cut fat off of the slabs of meat. His continued methodical movements seemed so out of place to the peaceful-raised Beforan.

After everything was cut up, he started pressing salt to the chunks of meat, coating them thoroughly before captchaloguing them again and having them disappear into his sylladex. "That should keep them for about a week." he muttered, "Which should be enough time for us to eat them. If we haven't found more food in that time, then we don't _deserve_ to survive."

He picked up the canteen and held it out to Kankri, who blinked. "You've been licking your lips for the last ten minutes without realizing it." His voice was consistently annoyed, "Take a fucking drink already."

Kankri took the canteen with two fingers, as though it were a snake that would bite him, before taking a sip of the water. While he was drinking, Karkat pulled on the new shirt and used the coarse cloth to start wiping off the knife and his sickles, face still set in that grimly determined expression.

"H-How can you stay so calm and just-"

The blow of Karkat's fist came faster than he could have seen it, knocking him to one side and smacking the canteen out of his hand, bringing another bruise to the surface of his skin, and by the time he looked up again Karkat's expression had finally changed. His shoulders were shaking, his face going a dark puce color in infuriation. He was biting his lip, hard enough to bring droplets of blood to the surface.

"You think I'm fucking _calm_?!" his shaking shoulders had shifted into a general shaking that was racking his entire body. His voice shook just as much as the rest of him, and Kankri realized at that moment that the methodical movements from before hadn't been true calm; they had been barely contained panic.

Karkat grabbed the collar of his sweater, pulling him up until the younger was right in his face. The next words were hissed and shaky and filled with panic-laced anger. "We're on the fucking planet I grew up on, dumbshit, I _know_ just how _fucked_ we are. We're on the planet that made me grow up _afraid_ of leaving home but fucking prepared to _do it anyway_. We're on the planet that trained me _never to blush or cry_ in public. We're on the planet where I grew up _knowing_ I was going to be _killed!_ "

The hands around his sweater collar tightened and he squirmed a little bit, eyes wide and unsure.

"You're fucking two sweeps older than me physically, a _tr_ _illion_ sweeps older than me mentally, and _I'm_ still the fucking one who can keep _you_ alive." Karkat's voice shook even more, turning into a weak sort of whimper. "You're the older one. Why am I the one who has to take the responsibility?"

Then the hands left his collar, letting him slump back as Karkat slowly backed up, went back to where he had been sitting. The younger male returned to cleaning his sickles, eyes focused downwards at the steel and mouth shut tightly once more. They were both silent while he finished the task - and while he picked up the stone he had gotten from his inventory and started piling up the innards he had pulled from the lusus. "Go get some firewood." he finally said softly, not looking up.

Kankri retreated, leaving the cave and sticking to the nearby area as he gathered fuel for the upcoming fire. Fallen bush branches, dead bushes, small saplings that came up easily by the roots. He tried to stay away from leafy things, remembering from his insignificant amount of camping knowledge that they caused smoke and he and Karkat would probably be avoiding drawing attention to themselves here.

It felt strange admitting that he didn't know much of what he was doing here, but Karkat was right. If it weren't for his upbringing and familiarity with things like this, they'd likely have already been dead.

* * *

The memory slowly faded out again and the other version of him stood up, pulling him away from the edge again and waving a hand to dismiss the memory bubbles that were floating around them. They started walking together, Kankri quietly trying to understand what had happened in the two memories they had watched so far. He followed beside the older version of himself, eyes downcast to the ground and mouth curled in a small frown.

The taller version of himself pushed his hands into the waistband of his pants, not seeming to have pockets on them, and kept his eyes forward as they walked. Around them, the dream bubbles shifted colors and shapes, flat slopes changing into stairs and uneven ground and different scenery around them.

They walked through a forest, along a beach, and over the moon of Prospit before Kankri spoke up, "Where are we going?"

The older glanced over at him, quirking up a lip. "Anywhere and nowhere." he chuckled a bit, "I just think it's time for a break. You don't have to follow me if you don't want to, I'm just going to wander."

"But if I don't follow you, I won't get to learn more- what if you get lost in the dream bubbles or something!" Kankri crossed his arms, trying not to stick out his lower lip in a pout. It didn't work.

The older let out a laugh, one that was almost exactly the same as Kankri's own rare laughter, and it put him slightly more at ease with the other. "Not to worry. I've been in these bubbles just as long as you, remember? You promised to hear the whole story, I promise to tell you the whole story. I just..." he looked away, seeming to scan the dream bubbles as they passed through them, "...there are things _I_ need to do here, too."

And with that, he continued walking, leaving the alpha Kankri staring after him with a strange emotion tugging at the back of his mind, tangling his stomach painfully.


	3. Chapter 3

The dream bubbles were buzzing with excitement the next time that Karkat passed through them. It was the middle of their day-night cycle on the meteor, so it seemed like everyone was asleep and exploring the dream bubbles. Dave and Rose waved to him as he passed them, half waves of acknowledgement more than of appreciation, and Rose pointed off in a particular direction with an amused smile. He (reluctantly) started off in that direction, because it wasn't like he had anything better to do.

When he entered the next bubble over and saw the crowd of pre-scratch trolls, five or six iterations of each, all sitting in a wide circle surrounding something, even his curiosity was piqued. Kankri was standing just outside the circle, leaning against a gold pillar, eyes focused to the center. Karkat turned his gaze to what the other was watching.

It was like clockwork in Aradia's music boxes, two forms constantly in motion at point and counterpoint to one another, playing off of each other's movements while adding in their own. He recognized the nubby horns on both competitors. The dark gray shirts on both meant that these two were the strange new iterations of himself and Kankri, the ones who wore no sign, no color.

He watched them for a moment, constantly moving around each other, blades in hands. The offshoot of him had both original sickles, those that hadn't been affected by the game, cold impersonal steel with worn down handles that Karkat could already see were fitted to rest perfectly balanced in the offshoot's hands. The right hand was curled around it's sickle with an awkward grip, two of the fingers not seeming fully closed around the handle, but he didn't seem bothered by it.

The third blade in the equation made his eyebrows raise. It was a large bladed, long staved scythe that the offshoot Kankri was using with ease, twirling and blocking blows without even a second of hesitation. The surprise came at the sheer size of it, though. It was as long as the older troll ghost was tall, and the blade was half that length, and at least as thick as the offshoot's waist. Considering the size of the blade (steel as well, he could tell already) it had to weigh somewhere close to thirty pounds. His own sickles both weighed about ten pounds in total, five pounds each.

The two were moving with a practiced precision, feet stepping lightly forward and back as they attacked and parried and blocked. If he hadn't seen it he wouldn't have believed it. The other Kankri was laughing and taunting the other him, who was grinning back, all teeth bared in a half-feral way.

"You lost your touch these past few days, Karkat!"

"You wish!" A strike forward, blocked by the scythe blade. "If anything you lost your nerve! You've been blocking and parrying more than attacking!"

The ring of trolls around the two were calling out jeers and cheering on the side they were supporting, a few of them making and taking bets on the outcome of the spar. Karkat walked over to Kankri, leaning on the pillar beside him and watching in silence.

"...they're quite good." Kankri said slowly, for once keeping short and to the point. Karkat cast a glance over at him, arching an eyebrow - that was new.

"I didn't know you had scythekind."

"I haven't used it much since our game. Being a Seer and all, more suited to conducting from the background." The other's eyes hadn't left the spiral of movement in the center of the circle, arms crossed over his chest. "The other me used it a lot over his last sweep, though. All throughout their divergence from the alpha timeline." He leaned his head back against the pillar, closing his eyes for a second, "Apparently they sparred with each other once a day for the last good few perigees in their timeline."

"That would explain their ease of movement." Karkat frowned, "You're acting different. You're actually capable of shutting up. It's weird."

"I'm..." Kankri made a face, letting out a breath, "trying to rein myself in, I suppose you could say." he opened his eyes again, blank white slates, and turned his head slightly to look at Karkat.

"Well." Karkat curled his lip slightly, still confused but shrugging it off. "I guess it's an okay change." he turned to watch the two sparring ghosts again, having to appraise the technique they were both using. The only flaw he could see was the grip of his other self's right hand. Something about it just seemed... wrong.

The offshoot Kankri swung low, causing offshoot Karkat to jump over the massive steel blade. While it was mid-swing, and while he was mid-jump, the older Karkat swung out with both of his sickles, using their momentum to twist his body around in a circle and give them more momentum. Offshoot Kankri bent backwards at the waist, avoiding the swings and swinging his scythe around again so that the blunt end caught around the Karkat's ankles, bringing him to the ground with a grunt.

The sharp end of the scythe's blade was pressed to the offshoot Karkat's throat, signifying the end of the match.

"You were saying about me and my nerve?" the older Kankri said dryly, not removing his blade until the Karkat had put his sickles back into his strife specibus. After the first two blades were gone, the third disappeared as well and the older Kankri leaned down to help the other Karkat up. When the older Karkat swung his right hand up to grab onto the other's hand, he also kicked his leg out to sweep the older Kankri off his feet.

The older Kankri, for this offense, made sure to land right on top of the older Karkat. They burst into laughter about it while trolls around the circle handed over boondollars and chattered among themselves. Meenah walked to the center of the ring, tugging both of them up and holding up their arms with a big sharktoothed grin on her face. The crowd of pre-scratch troll iterations clapped and cheered before starting to disperse.

Meenah turned to the offshoot Karkat, putting a hand on her hip and still grinning. They started chatting idly while the offshoot Kankri brushed himself off. Alpha Kankri pushed off of the pillar, leaving Karkat behind to go speak with his older form.

Karkat, after a moment of debate, decided against going forward as well. One Kankri was more than enough for him, thanks.

* * *

Kankri stood about two feet away from his offshoot, watching for a few seconds before the other looked up to grin at him. It still unsettled him sometimes, that grin; it was affectionate and exasperated and so many other conflicting emotions all at once. It was the same grin that his offshoot would send at the offshoot Karkat.

"It's been a while since I've seen that scythe outside of my strife specibus." he said dryly, having mastered the other's arid tone himself.

"S'been awhile since _anybouy_ has seen that fuckin' scythe, Kankrab." Meenah had paused her conversation with the offshoot Karkat to look over her shoulder and make a face at him. It was practically enough to make him believe in the 'miracles' that Kurloz and his dancestor were always touting. Meenah speaking to him in an almost civilized manner. Incredible.

His offshoot seemed to think so as well, as his eyebrows had seemingly disappeared into his hairline. The two shared a glance, his mouth quirking upward, before the Alpha shook his head a minute amount and turned to answer Meenah, "As I recall, the last time you saw it..."

"...it was blocking _your_ double trident." his offshoot matched his tone almost perfectly, acerbic sarcasm on the tip of his tongue but a sly grin on his face.

Meenah made an eye rolling gesture with her head, "You never were any fun." she stuck out her tongue, and after another shared glance the two Kankri's returned the gesture with four raised middle fingers and two stuck out tongues.

"Hey, no fair!" Meenah pouted, "You shouldn't be allowed to outnumber me," she punched the offshoot Karkat in the arm, "Hey, older shouty, back me up here."

The offshoot Karkat chuckled, "Sorry, Meenah." he leaned over to kiss her cheek before walking to stand beside his timeline companion. "I've got previous loyalties."

Meenah went the funniest shade of purple-pink, half in fury and embarrassment and half in 'oh my cod he kissed my cheek'. The three mutantbloods who were standing near her let out chuckles, though alpha Kankri was less enthusiastic about the whole thing.

The offshoot Karkat raised a hand in farewell as he turned to leave the circle, but before he could the offshoot Kankri grabbed his wrist. The Karkat looked around to meet the other's eye before giving a small smile and a nod. The offshoot Kankri smiled thankfully back and let go of his wrist, waving back slightly before letting the other leave.

"...what was that aboat?" Meenah, in her typical blunt style, directed the question at the older Kankri after taking a second to share a look of mutual confusion with alpha Kankri. The offshoot continued giving that tiny, grateful smile for a few seconds, watching his timeline partner walk away, before shaking his head.

"Nothing that need concern you, Meenah." His voice had that same dry amused tone to it, but it was strong enough that it held the obvious 'step off' in it. He turned around and started walking away, hands pushed into pockets and a heaviness to his steps that any trained observer would notice.

Meenah had had more than enough time to get good at noticing things. While Alpha Kankri was still a clueless little nub when it came to seeing what was going on around him, she could immediately pick out certain aspects of the offshoot's behavior. The defensive tone, the reliance on older-shouty... She turned on Alpha Kankri and crossed her arms over her chest, "Alright what the shell have you been talkin' aboat with him? Cuz whatever it is, he ain't tellin' nobouy else."

"...then it's on a need to know basis." Kankri said slowly, turning to look at her warily, "If he's not telling anyone but myself, then I'm not going to betray his confidence."

"He's _you_ , Insufferable!" she scowled toward him, "If anybouy has the right to tell his sea-crets, it's you." Leaning toward him, her frown deepened, "Plus you're the Sea-r of Blood, you're the one who's s'posed to fuckin' understand emotional carp or someshit."

Kankri chuckled, an acerbic smile forming on his face as he bowed slightly toward her, "I'm sorry, Princess, but he isn't me. Not anymore... and I'm not him. Yet. He's something..." his expression softened, to a kind of bitterness, "...something I _could_ be, but probably won't ever be."

"What?" she leaned toward him again, tone demanding. Kankri looked back up to meet her gaze before he straightened and turned to leave. His voice was as bitter as his expression had become.

"He's strong."

* * *

He found the other him in that same dream bubble they had been in before, sitting at the edge and staring out toward the emptiness. A general quietness seemed to surround him, one that kept him quiet as he sat down in the spot he had taken up before. Next to the other, watching him for a few moments. His other self was seemingly lost in thought, in a trance looking out toward the open blackness.

He took the time that the other was drifting pensively to consider this other him again - to look him over once more. The definition his face had gone through in a sweep and a half of further growing, still smooth and clean cut with angular bones, but having lost the puffiness around the cheeks that seemed to still plague the alpha. The way his eyes were ever-so-slightly sunken in, with thin lines of forever-shadows that would probably never leave under them. The thinner eyelashes than the alpha had, as though most of them had been pulled out or something of that nature. Tiny scars all over his cheeks, down his chin, one scar cutting one of his eyebrows in half vertically. Lines over his lip, scars where it had undoubtedly been split open multiple times. There was a chip in one of his horns, a tiny little splotch of white where the darkened outer bone had been broken away.

His eyes drifted down to the marring of letters and numbers on the other's neck, just visible behind the tendrils of hair now that he knew it was there. It was small enough to be hidden easily, but large enough to pick it out from about five feet if you were looking for it. There was a bump along the other's collar bone, suggesting it had been broken and had healed awkwardly. The edge of the other's shirt made his eyes stop, and look back up at the face again.

His eyes met the blank white of the other's, making him jump slightly. The other had turned his head perfectly in time with his return to the offshoot's face.

"Would you like to continue?" his older self asked, softly, looking at him with an intensity that made him want to shift unsurely. He was offering a way out, Kankri could tell, but he made himself sit straight and nod. He had promised to hear the entire story. He _wanted_ to know the entire story.

"Yes."

The older's mouth quirked slightly, a little less than it had the day before, and he waved his hand to form the memory bubbles again. He waved through them to sort them before bringing one forward and popping it. "Believe it or not, this is after a few days of much of the same." his elder self said softly, "Those first few days were... stressful, to say the least. This is about a week after we first arrived."

* * *

A soft glow was cast onto the stone walls of the cave, the fire having been stoked and a bit of lusus meat suspended on a spit that Karkat had made over it. The crackling sound of blood popping and the smell of it hitting the flames permeated their surroundings. Karkat was turning the spit with a focused expression on his face, shadows dancing across his cheekbones and making him look a lot more tired than he already had been.

They had had a few run-ins with other lusii over the course of the last few days, and every time, Karkat had been the one to either scare them away or kill them. Kankri had made the mistake at one point to ask if all lusii were feral and had gotten a very informative string of Alternian curses and a short, explosive explanation of the purpose of a lusus' life. (Karkat was quite creative when he cursed, it was apparent.)

As it was, the cave was quiet and the two of them were both pensive. Kankri had his hands pointed toward the fire, eyes closed and just enjoying the heat. They had divided up jobs the first day - Kankri gathered firewood, tried to find some food to augment Karkat's stores so they could save use of the tiny alchemiter - he only had so much grist in his cache. Karkat made the fires, cooked the food, and chased away threats.

For the first time ever, Kankri had had a chance to watch Karkat train with his sickles, watch him use them. The other was all condensed, flexible muscle, fluid movements and deadly focus, accuracy and agility. He had the chance to consider the other's strengths and weaknesses, the way his movements stretched his ability.

For the first time in nearly two billion sweeps, his fingers itched for the coarse, splintered wood of a weapon he hadn't used in nearly that long or longer. He still had his specibus set to scythekind, but it had been forever and a half since he had been in any kind of combat. His scythe was still in his specibus, but... he didn't know if he could even use it anymore.

The fire popped and crackled a little bit, with Karkat pulling the spit off of the flames. He pulled the meat off of the spit and pulled the meat apart with his fingertips, handing one half over to Kankri and starting to eat the other half himself. Kankri took the hot meat carefully, trying not to burn himself, and took a small bite of it.

It never ceased to amaze him that Karkat could stand tearing apart the meat with his fingertips, when by his standards it could easily cause burns. But he supposed that was part of what made Karkat so different from him - his society was one where pain was not necessarily something to shy away from.

* * *

"The first day was the hardest." the offshoot said slowly, softly, "We had no sopor, and we were already edged more toward panic due to our interaction with the horrorterrors in the void. Our cave was the only thing that was a blessing for us those first few days, between the fear of sleeping demons and the fear of waking ones; it was the one thing protecting us from the harsh sun and giving us a place to defend from outside forces. But... that first day... I doubt either of us slept much."

The alpha blinked as he looked to the fire himself, barely able to smell the scent of the meat and the blood popping in the flames, sending sensory blips gone haywire to the nasal section of his thinkpan. It had been two billion sweeps since he last smelled something, and after a while in the dream bubbles everyone forgot things that they had remembered, particularly the smells of the worlds before. Sounds and sights were more prominent in everyone's memory. They would be able to recognize smells, but they couldn't call them up whenever they wanted to.

"I can... imagine." He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to pull the other's memory of the warmth of the flames onto his own face. As much as he was trying to listen to the story and focus on what the other was telling him, there was a nostalgic pull towards the sensations of a living thing. It had been so long since he had felt the pull, the caring of what happened. Being in the dream bubbles, you kind of lost the sense of the importance of the things that happened to living things.

"It was strangely comforting, though." the offshoot noted softly, "We didn't sleep much, and when we did we did it at the same time no matter how much we might have worried about being found. After what we had gone through, neither of us wanted to chance facing the horrorterrors alone. We were bound by a common fear, a common goal."

The alpha nodded, not quite catching the significance of the statement. The offshoot gave a tired smile, "...you don't understand. That first night... that was the first time I think I've honestly done what my title in the game said I should be able to do."

The alpha blinked, confusion highlighting every feature of his face, "What do you mean?"

The offshoot's tired smile widened ever so slightly. "For the first time, I _understood_ \- as a Seer - the _bond_ that ties us together - Blood."

"...blood... ties... us together..." the alpha repeated softly, tilting his chin down as he considered the thought. The feeling of the fire inched his eyes toward closed, but the idea kept them open. The things that tied souls together, bonds, uniting for a common goal... things that he had failed to do, in their failed session.

"Being alive again," the offshoot eventually spoke, breaking his thought process and redirecting it back toward the memory, "gave me a chance to start understanding, and doing what I should have tried to do a hundred thousand times before."

* * *

Karkat dampened the fire down to glowing embers, putting away things they hadn't used into his sylladex again. The small pile of berries Kankri had gathered would serve as a sort of 'dessert' for the two of them.

They had been through so much in the last few days alone, and both of them were avoiding the thought that hovered treacherously in the air between them, poisoning the silence with terrifying thoughts. They weren't time players but they both knew it was still possible. Kankri's thoughts drifted to Damara and her caustic actions, the way she had conspired to ensure their game was sure to fail. The way that whenever they started making progress, she would...

She would doom the timeline.

He had met plenty of iterations of himself in the dream bubbles who would talk about how close they had managed to get before she jumped back and doomed them all. They would talk about working with Porrim, collecting frogs for weeks, sometimes even chasing after them when they got away from them (they always mentioned that chasing the frogs was at times more enjoyable than their squabbles with their Porrims). They would talk about sitting with Meulin during the session and starting to learn some sign language from her (he never did learn a lot, but over time in the dream bubbles meeting several of these doomed selves, he did eventually gather enough to get by in a normal conversation with her. If a conversation about relationships and her trying to meddle on his behalf was to be considered 'normal'). They would talk about sitting with Aranea, trying to glean as much information they could about the game (every time, they would say that listening to Aranea's explanations would make her so happy, and that eventually they did it just to see her smile because the farther along in the game they got, the less everyone smiled, and by sweep three he had known what they meant). One even talked about all of them gathering together and pulling off killing the Black King- only to see Damara give a downright _evil_ grin and open her music boxes to disappear.

Each of them talked about the sinking feeling they would get once they knew the timeline was a doomed offshoot, about wondering how much of what they had done had been rendered pointless. About the struggles they went through, to pull together, only to find out that it was all for naught and to drift apart again.

He spent a lot of time talking to himself in the bubbles, and had noticed that after a while he stopped seeing those offshoots... they drifted off too.

"Karkat...?"

The other looked up, mouth full of berries and one eyebrow arched toward him. His expression was mildly annoyed, but Kankri had sort of come to expect that over the last few days.

"I-I think we're in a doo-"

"Don't." Karkat's eyes had narrowed, "Don't you even fucking dare."

"It's not the end of the wo-"

"I said don't!" Karkat swallowed heavily, emptying his mouth of food and putting down the handful of berries he still held in his hand. Kankri quieted, biting his lip uneasily. It had been forever and a half since he had been alive, and even longer since he had even cared what would happen if he happened to be in a doomed timeline. It just sort of became a thing that you accepted.

"Why are you so afraid of facing it?

The words fell from his mouth before he even thought about what they meant. He saw Karkat's face slowly darken as the words sunk in, and for a brief moment Kankri considered backing down - but no, he couldn't back down now.

"We're in a _doomed timeline_." He said it simply, with no inflection to his voice other than the slight emphasis on the last two words. "There's nothing we can do to change it if we are, and nothing to indicate we aren't." He instinctively dodged Karkat's fist, sending both of them grappling in the dirt. Karkat continued trying to punch him, letting out a hissing screech of outrage at each dodged punch, every time that Kankri shoved him off.

"Karkat-"

"Let me punch you!"

"Karkat, _no._ "

"I'm gonna cut off your face and shove it up your ass!"

Quite suddenly, two glints of metal were in play as Karkat pulled out his sickles, snarling and with his face crumpled in on itself, eyes gleaming with anger and perhaps a tiny bit of insanity. He lunged again, aiming the sickles at Kankri.

Kankri brought a hand up, blocking the first blow by redirecting Karkat at the wrist. The second blow glanced across his cheek, making a cut about two inches long along it. He winced slightly before shoving Karkat away again.

The second lunge was met, metal against metal, with a scythe. The massive weapon had appeared in an instant, right where he needed it to be, with his hands wrapped around the handle. The clangs of parried blows rang sharply for a few moments, until finally Karkat slowed.

" _Stop._ " Kankri snapped, whacking the sickles out of Karkat's hands with the staff of his scythe. Immediately, the sickles disappeared into Karkat's strife specibus and reappeared in his hands, the other moving to attack again.

" _Stop!_ " He repeated, whacking the sickles again. "Karkat, this is ridiculous, and pointless, and- _hrrk_!" the butt of one of the sickles was driven into his gut, driving him to the ground coughing.

Karkat raised one sickle high above his head, shaking, ready to bring it down, but hesitated when Kankri started babbling again, between coughs

"Please, no, I don't- I don't want to die again, I don't _want_ to, it _stinks_ being dead and I _missed_ being alive and you _don't want_ to die either, believe me, you _don't_... J-Just because we're going to die eventually is no reason to stop fighting to live as long as possible, Karkat, _please_ , I don't want to-"

"Shut up."

The voice was in such a defeated tone that Kankri immediately fell silent, and looked up to see Karkat putting his sickles away and curling up in a corner, wrapping his arms around his knees. Despite his initial instinct to go over to the other, Kankri stayed still, instead wiping his cheek with the hem of his sweater and pressing the fabric against the bleeding slice.

* * *

The memory faded, the offshoot giving a fond smile as the golden ledge they had been sitting on reformed around them. "Our first spar..." he murmured, raising a leg to rest his foot on the very edge and wrapping his arms around the knee.

"Didn't look like a spar to me, looked more like he was trying to kill you." the alpha cracked a smile himself, gaining a chuckle from the offshoot.

"He was." the two words were laced with amusement, "But it doesn't change the fact that it was our first time fighting each other with our weapons. You must understand the nostalgia I'm feeling right now, right?"

"I've got an idea of it." The alpha blinked and watched the other push away from the edge, starting to stand, "Only one memory this time?"

"'fraid so." the offshoot ran a hand through his hair, scratching at the base of one of the nubby horns, before leaning backward until a pop resounded from the base of his spine. "We'll continue later, I have-"

"Things to do," the alpha nodded, "Yeah. I figured."

The offshoot looked mildly apologetic, a sad look behind his eyes. "I'll explain... soon. I promise." He smiled a little bit, sheepishly, "You trust me to keep my word?"

"As much as I can trust myself." Kankri put his chin in one hand, frowning slightly at the other before waving him off, "Go on, I'll find you later."

The offshoot nodded with a faint, sad smile, before turning and leaving. Kankri had a feeling that he would always end up leaving these meetings with his stomach tied in confused knots.


	4. Chapter 4

A sort of quietness presided in the dream bubbles where Karkat had chosen to wander, away from everyone else. Memories melded together, grasslands and plains and the sensation of moonlight falling down over the land. It didn't seem like many trolls were in this part of paradox space, but the memories had to be someone's, so he was prepared to run into ghosts out here.

He had passed through four or five melding memoryscapes while his thoughts drifted with his feet, trying and failing to not let his uneasiness show on his face. As secluded as these bubbles seemed to be, they could have belonged to anyone and he wasn't in the mood for a conversation with a stranger. Or a conversation with someone he knew. Or a conversation at all, really.

He was vaguely aware of someone nearby, probably the owner of the most recent memoryscape he had entered, which had the two moons of Alternia hovering on the horizon of a vast wasteland. It had become easier to tell if the owners were Alternian or Beforan based on how many moons were in the sky, when they weren't game players. He changed direction slightly to make sure he would avoid the bubble's owner, but the expanse of wasteland just seemed to continue, no matter how far he walked. He would have been worried about that if his thoughts weren't more important to him at the moment.

Doomed offshoots weren't new to him; hell, he'd gotten used to being around ghosts of other trolls, it wasn't that hard to think that he could meet other versions of himself that died in their timelines. But he wasn't stupid and he had gleaned a little bit of knowledge from his miniscule time in the bubbles, and he knew some of the rules of offshoot timelines. Aradia had an expansive knowledge of such things, and it wasn't hard to find out from her.

And even if he hadn't known, one look at Kankri's face when he saw the offshoots appear would have been - _had_ been - more than enough to realize that something unusual was going on. For a troll who prided himself in remaining calm and unflappable, Kankri was incredibly expressive. Seeing his eyes wide and his jaw dropped was enough incentive for Karkat to get the hell out of there. He didn't _want_ to meet something that could shock even the interminably speaking douchebag into silence.

But even though time passed, the silence hadn't quite ended, and the strangest part was that it was unnerving. Over the next week, Alpha douchecanoe had been on edge and jumpy, constantly loitering near the two offshoots and watching them as surreptitiously as he could. Karkat avoided both groups on principle. It was never pleasant to speak to any iteration of himself, and would usually end in a massive fight over everything and nothing at all. And Kankri... fuck that douchebag.

The next time he talked to the alpha version of the infuriating preacher, the strangeness had only doubled - literally. Short sentences, a pensive attitude, and he had moved over toward the offshoot him as though they were suddenly the best of friends. One Kankri was more than enough to deal with. Two of them being friends was painful to think about.

He had the presence of mind to realize that he had been in the same memory for over five minutes, but was certain he had been walking, which meant the edge of the memory was moving away from him at the same pace that he was moving toward it. Automatically, instinctively even, his senses moved outward. A form, a few feet behind him, walking quietly enough on the grass that his own footsteps covered the other's. Same pace as him, barely even looking at him (he would have sensed the eyes on him). He kept his pace steady even as he prepared himself.

Metal clashed against metal when he turned in one fluid motion, slashing a sickle toward the other - only to find one waiting. Blank white eyes and a faintly smirking face greeted him, unruly cowlicked hair that curled down and over the other's neck, a scarred face, one that he knew, and didn't know.

It was his own, but it was strange and mature and _oh fuck it's **that** offshoot_.

"Perfect form, as always." the expected note of derision was strangely absent in the other's tone. It was, instead, even and controlled, almost appreciative, like a teacher complimenting one of his students. "I'm surprised it took you so long to notice me. If I were an enemy you would be just as dead as I am. You're usually better about that."

Another clang of metal, and Karkat leapt back away from the other version of himself. The offshoot didn't, as he had half expected him to, fall into a stance. Even though he himself had fallen into one, ready to strife, the other lowered his sickles instead.

"Look." The offshoot started, and Karkat leapt forward with a downward slash, aiming to wound his seemingly unprepared opponent, but again he was blocked. The other hadn't seemed to move between the instant his sickles were down by his sides to the instant one was up protecting his head and shoulder.

Karkat was thrown back again, enough force to skid him back a few feet, not enough to knock him over. "If you want to make an ass of yourself, go ahead." the offshoot continued speaking as though he hadn't been interrupted. Short leaps forward, jabs and slashes were always met with the singing of metal against metal. Blocks, parries. The other had barely _moved_ and he was deflecting all of Karkat's attempted attacks without seeming to break a sweat!

"I've got a sweep and a half more experience on you, twice as much self-control, and I had a good teacher rather than your hodge-podge self-taught ability." Between blocks and parries, between throwing the alpha back and redirecting him to the side or even _behind_ himself, the offshoot continued talking. "Even though perfection was and is your goal and standard, you've still got a long way to go." Karkat was barely listening.

The final time he tried to attack the other, getting a final block, he screamed in the offshoot's face, "Fight back! Stop talking and fight back, you fucking nooksniffing-"

A fist landed in his gut, knocking the breath out of him, and a leg swept his feet out from under him, sending him to the ground and clattering his sickles away. A hand wrapped around his throat, not tight enough to cut off his breathing, resting with just enough pressure to make it clear that the other could and would strangle the living daylights out of him if he so chose.

"Are you sure you want me to fight back?" the voice was _soft_ , dangerously calm, and it sent a shiver down Karkat's spine. He swallowed heavily against the hand at his throat, staring upwards with a very real fear settling in his gut; the other's face had hardened, tired lines forming on his forehead, the shadows around his eyes darkening for a moment. "I don't play fair. Fight me and you _will_ lose."

He tilted his head slightly upward, clearly looking toward where Karkat's sickles had skittered away, and with a twitch of his hands Karkat had recalled them into his strife deck. The hand remained for a moment, until it was clear he wasn't going to pull them out again, and then retreated from his neck. A hand was offered to help him up; in a daze, he took it.

"Now look, I wasn't looking for a fight. I was looking for something completely different, completely unrelated to you. I deviated from my task to follow after you because you seemed so lost in thought, and there _are_ trolls in these dream bubbles who won't spare an inch of mercy on a distracted troll. You're the alpha, you're supposed to be the one that does it right according to Paradox Space, you've got to be survival oriented at this point. The only way to win is to survive until you get an advantage, and then use it."

"Will you shut up." The growled words had irritation woven through them and his lip automatically rose in a snarl. "You sound like Kankri."

The other's face hardened again, and it didn't take a genius to tell he had been insulted. "Spend a sweep with only one other troll you can trust, against the world, and you'll start talking like them too." An unsaid insult hung in the air, making the alpha bristle. The other's expression didn't change; he remained, standing still and tall and proud and fearless.

"What do you want, anyway?" Karkat snarled next, curling his hands into fists.

"Nothing." The blunt answer still managed to catch the other off guard, "My Kankri and your Kankri are busy. I'm busy. I paused being busy to watch your back for you so it didn't end up with a dagger in it. You're welcome, you ungrateful piece of shit."

Before the alpha could even form a sentence without sputtering in rage, before he could dull down the fury that had spiked in his chest at the last few words, the other had turned and was walking away, hands in his pockets. The bubble around him shifted into an empty dreamscape that soon filled with his own memories of Alternia, signifying he was alone, before he could think coherently again.

He really wanted to strangle himself.

* * *

Kankri's third meeting didn't start with pleasantries, didn't start with a smile on the other's face. "Today, we begin on the hardest part of the story for me to relate." his expression was that of quiet pain, remembered agony. "If there were any part of the story I wish I could skim over, it would be what is to come." Like the last two times, he leaned back and met the alpha's gaze evenly, "Do you wish to leave?"

The alpha held his gaze, silent, and sat down beside him.

The offshoot gave a tired, ferocious grin and rested a hand on the other's shoulder. "I mean it. If you want to leave, do it now."

"I promised."

And the two words were enough to make the grin drop off of the other's face, and return it to the tired, serious expression it had been before. "So be it." he pressed the pads of his fingers to his temples, rubbing them for a moment as if to ease an ache, before waving a hand and calling up the bubbles again. They were down three from the first time he had called them up.

He waved his hand again, and four bubbles came forward while the others drifted back, disappearing again. He reached up to one of the four that remained, hesitated a moment. His hand was shaking.

The alpha reached up and popped it for him, silent once more.

* * *

Where many of the other memories had started with silence, this one started with sound. A loud argument was taking place, in their little cave hiding place, with Karkat off to one side with his sickles out and Kankri to the other with his scythe. Somewhere along in the last few weeks, the time between the last memory and this one, such a sight became quite common.

Karkat curled his lip, "Look, all I'm saying is that we're gonna need to snitch some things and you are anything but inconspicuous!"

"And _I'm_ saying I'm not letting you go alone, because what if something happens? Like it or not, you're stuck with me, Karkat, and I may be more or less useless here but I'm not going to be marginalized!"

Both of them were talking loudly, verging on yelling but not quite there yet. It seemed that sometime in the past few weeks they had gotten over the fear of sleeping, since the dark circles under their eyes had eased some, though they were still there due to their lack of sopor slime.

"You're over nine sweeps, dumbshit, your eyes show!"

"You'll get caught stealing, I know you will! And then where will you end up?"

"I'll get caught even faster if I'm there with you!"

"Then at least we'll be caught together!"

A tense silence fell between them, Karkat glowering and Kankri frowning, arms crossed determinedly. "Look." Kankri finally huffed, "I'm going with you whether you like it or not." Maybe it was their shared blood, or maybe it was just the fact that they'd been spending so much time together by necessity over the last few weeks, but Kankri had slowly managed to drop most of his higher-than-thou attitude and had instead gained some of Karkat's stubbornness.

"No, you're not." Karkat's snarl was determined, "If you're so convinced I'll get caught, then at least one of us will still be free and not dead."

"Oh yeah and I'll really survive a long while out here on my own!"

Another tense silence, Karkat refusing to agree even though it was true.

"I'll fight you for it." Kankri finally muttered, eyes narrowed at the other Vantas. "Scythe and Sickles, if I win I go with you, whatever happens we face it together. You win, I'll stay behind."

"Bullshit." Karkat snapped immediately, "Even if I win you'll break your half of the bargain and follow after me."

"Then why are you still entertaining the thought you can make me stay when you know that?"

"Because, asshole, I'm tired of having people around me _die_!"

The space between them disappeared as Kankri strode forward and pulled the other into a tight hug, and no matter how much Karkat squirmed and tried to get free, Kankri held firm. "You're also tired of having to watch out for me." Kankri muttered, "So let me make decisions, let me make mistakes. You'll always have to watch out for me otherwise."

"You know it's a mistake." Karkat shoved at his chest, "And you still want to go."

"Yes," Kankri tightened his arms, "Because you _don't_ know it's a mistake. And you're stuck with me, so I'm not going to let you face stuff like that alone."

"One of these days you're gonna get us both killed." Karkat muttered. He slowly went limp in Kankri's arms, not fighting anymore, but not hugging back.

"Not exactly the end of the world, that." Kankri chuckled, deciding that was the best he was going to get, letting go and stepping back. "So, we're gonna go walking, hm?"

"Walking... wandering... we're gonna have to find a town or something and get more supplies. I don't want to have to use my Alchemiter so soon. Something tells me it's not the right time for it, that there's gonna be a time I really need to use the grist I've got in my cache and I shouldn't use it too soon."

Kankri nodded, giving a small, hesitant smile, "Let's go then. Pick a direction, any direction." he strode out of the cave, standing a few feet in front of its mouth, and put his hands on his hips to look around. "Eventually, we'll have to find something."

And it was as they both started walking that the memory faded.

* * *

The alpha arched an eyebrow as everything returned to normal, "That was... short." he glanced around, catching sight of the offshoot, of the pained expression on his face. "Why do you look like..."

"That decision basically sealed our fate." The offshoot had brought a hand up to brush against the marring of numbers and letters on his jugular, "He was right, in that I was anything but inconspicuous. I wasn't used to the world he grew up in, I didn't realize just how bad things really were."

"But..." the alpha frowned, and the offshoot sighed.

"Well, I guess in a way we were both right. He was right that I'd be too conspicuous, I was right that he would overestimate himself and his skills. Either way it... all ends up the same. We started walking, starting the twisted path that would eventually land us in the rebellion, but first..." he looked up and out into the void, "First, it led us to a lot of pain."

He reached up and hit another bubble, popping it and letting new information seep into it all. Buildings popped up around them while everything shifted, changing into the memory itself. A small town, big enough to get lost in the crowd but small enough to not get lost in the ins and outs of places. Before the movement started, the offshoot started pointing things out.

"There's the shop stall that Karkat tried to snitch from. I stayed near the edge of town, trying to stay out of sight... Over there's where they caught me, and over there's the spot where Karkat got caught." there was a shakiness to the other's voice that made the alpha examine him, face blank but form tense as if unsure what to do.

Kankri reached over to press a hand against the other's shoulder.

"Maybe it'd be easier if I just watched." he murmured softly, a spark of something cold and fearful running through his system from his fingertips, a feeling no words could truly capture. It felt like the wind that blew through, the first and only warning before a tempest came to tear everything apart. It felt like his blood had disappeared, leaving his veins filled with nothing but cold winter air that sung through his system, leaving him frozen.

It barely took him a second to realize that these emotions, these potent sensations and feelings that he was experiencing, were hardly a brush of the surface of the other's emotional state. The offshoot shuddered, leaning into his hand, and waved one hand to start the memory moving.

* * *

The second the memory started and everything became chaotic, the alpha could feel the offshoot tensing as if expecting what was to go wrong. He turned his eyes to watch the spots that had been pointed out, seeing himself stop just outside of town, gesturing to a stall, waving Karkat on with a few muttered words. Automatically, his mouth formed the same words: I'll watch your back.

Everything slowed down, details sharpening, and a sense of adrenaline filled the memoryscape. It flickered at the back of Alpha Kankri's mind, barely there, just sensed. _I guess I'm getting better at this understanding bonds thing._

He watched Karkat stride into the town, the perfect picture of confidence, moving just fast enough that he could be passed over - he had a destination in mind, but wasn't in such a hurry that he became conspicuous.

_He's right. I'd never be able to pull that off._

His eyes flicked over to where he himself had been left, dawdling awkwardly just out of town - incredibly obvious to anyone who spared a glance that way. The sense of surety and dread that the other still had running through his system sent tingling sparks up and down his spine.

He could almost put a countdown to it.

 _Five_ , Karkat was at the stall, looking at the wares with an almost perfect disinterest, waiting until the shopkeep turned to another customer before he flicked a glance around.

 _Four_ , a little troll girl looked around, seeing the other him. Her face contorted through confusion, awe, and then a twist of disgust.

 _Three_ , Karkat's hand reached toward an apple, wrapping around it and bringing it back to his pocket without hesitation, barely taking a second. He turned, moving to walk away from the cart. He didn't see the troll who had glanced his way at the perfect instant.

 _Two_ , two voices rose above the chaotic din, one male, one female. One shouting "Thief!" and one loudly proclaiming to her friends, "That troll has weird bright eyes!"

_One._

From nowhere, trolls appeared in the crowd and descended on the two of them. Karkat had immediately started running the instant the word Thief left the troll's lips, and Kankri, half a second later, turned and started running at the same point.

That half of a second was all it took.

Three trolls descended on the other him, and that strange slowing of the memory around him, the flaring of details, sent a shock of fear and adrenaline running through Kankri's mind. He knew what this was; the same had happened to him, alpha him, during the moments before the Scratch, the instant Meenah pulled out her bomb - the moment he was sure he'd remember in perfect clarity for the rest of forever. The last few seconds before he died the first time.

A sick feeling settled in his stomach. This him had believed he was going to die again.

The trolls on top of him took one look at his eyes and made a disgusted sound, one that rattled through his mind and echoed words they didn't have to say.

_Freak._

_Filth._

**_Mutant._ **

A lifetime on Beforus and an eternity in the dream bubbles made him vulnerable enough to such derision, unprepared for it enough that the single sound shattered everything in him within an instant. The other him, the one under the trolls, seemed nearly as rattled by the derision but he managed to hold together, even if only because of the situation.

He yelled at Karkat to leave him behind, in those few precious seconds when Karkat slowed down to glance over his shoulder. With his head tilted up toward the other, he had the perfect view of the projectile weapon that slammed into Karkat's back, a stone about the size of his fist, one that made Karkat's eyes widen and his mouth open in a silent scream of pain.

_No._

The word echoed through the alpha's mind just as loudly as he was sure the offshoot had thought it, and he leaned forward to whisper it himself just half a second before the memory went black. He let out a surprised yelp, eyes wide, and looked around to the offshoot who was holding a hand to the back of his head.

"They hit me." he said softly, "Knocked me out."

The darkness around the two of them didn't dissipate as many of the other memories would have, instead thickening, becoming almost soupy in consistency, if a color could be said to have texture. The offshoot lowered his hand down to his neck, closing his eyes in a pained sort of look, and brief flashes of dulled light took on a red shade around them. The alpha could do no more than empathically wince, not quite feeling the pain the other had to be reexperiencing but aware that it was nonetheless _there_.

"This..." the offshoot's voice was shaky, "I always thought... this was the part of the memory where they..." his hand moved, fingertips rubbing lightly against the letters and numbers on his neck.

"...Porrim always told me tattoos hurt more if you're tense." the Alpha was at a loss for words, turning his eyes out toward the thick darkness, trying to think straight and understand what was going on. If this was when the tattoo had been marred into the other's skin, then... but it was so early in their timeline, how did they...?

"Mm. I can only imagine what pain Karkat must have gone through." the offshoot's voice shook even more than it did before, "He has told me since this point that... he was awake, during it. Unlike me."

The alpha let out a sharp breath at that, wincing again, "Oh... dear."

"Mm." The memory finally faded out, and the offshoot let out a breath as though incredibly relieved that it was over. His hand shook even more as it reached for the next bubble, and he pulled it down again for a moment to watch it shake. He let out a weak laugh and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I just..."

"Take your time." The alpha gave an unsure, meant to be reassuring smile and leaned back on his hands.

" _Kankri!_ " The duo looked up as one, surprised, at the intruding voice.

* * *

Feet pounded against the not-ground, moving through the dream bubbles with a sense of purpose and even hurry, weaving through and around trolls with an ease that spoke of practice dodging through crowds. The troll attached to the feet had his eyes forward (as much as could be told by the blank eyes) and seemed to have a specific location in mind of where he was running to. Most of those he passed leaped out of his way.

He skid to a stop just at the edge of his companion's preferred dream bubble, to see the alpha and the offshoot seemingly appearing out of nowhere. Inwardly, he cursed - he had promised not to interfere with his brother's sharing of their story with his alpha self, other than in providing a few of the bubbles he now had access to. A full second was spent shifting his weight from foot to foot, keeping in movement, ready to start running back the way he had come _if he could just get his goal accomplished-_

Fuck it.

" _Kankri!_ " the two of them both turned around at his voice, and he saw his brother's eyes widen slightly in question. He made a frantic 'come on' movement with his hands, sparing a glance at the alpha, and turned on his feet to start running back the way he had come. He heard more than saw the other following him at nearly the same frantic pace.

"Did you find-?" The question was cut short by a wheeze, and he winced sympathetically - his brother's sessions with the alpha were becoming increasingly tiring, he knew.

"It's something, I don't know who it is but a new bubble is drifting this way, and I thought-!" He dodged into another crowd of dead trolls, choosing the straightest path he could no matter what the obstacles. Behind him, he heard his offshoot doing the same, sparing apologies every few feet. By the time he heard the other close behind him again, they had left the group behind.

"You did right, I just hope-"

"We'll find out, I'm sure of it." he slowed to a stop, catching the offshoot Kankri with one hand and steadying him, "Kankri." he muttered, meeting the other's eyes, "We'll _find_ them."

* * *

The alpha who had been left behind didn't move for a good several minutes, partially out of hope that the other would come back and partially out of a coldness that had settled into his gut, an idea that hadn't fully formed that he already knew he wasn't going to like, but that he was probably going to follow through with anyway. His hands moved in an automatic configuration, a silent prayer for strength and courage from the gods whose realm they now existed in, something familiar he had learned first and foremost during his brief sessions with all his other selves learning sign language to 'talk' effectively with Meulin. "Gods have mercy on me." he murmured at the end of the sign language prayer, closing his eyes for a few seconds before opening them and looking up.

As he had already known, the offshoot had left the bubbles floating there in his frantic departure, the two that were left drifting, harmless, in front of his face. His eyes moved to the one that the offshoot was about to pop, the next in their story, then to the fourth and final bubble that had been called up that day.

He knew what order they would go in.

He could watch them, spare the offshoot the obvious pain that remembering these would cause.

He could watch them without having to wait, get the admitted _hard_ part of the story done in one go, like removing a bandage.

The coldness in his stomach and the frantic voice in the back of his head both agreed that it was a horrible idea. _He_ agreed it was a horrible idea. He looked away from the two bubbles, biting his lip, and muttered the four words like a mantra: "It's a horrible idea, it's a horrible idea, it's a horrible idea..."

His hand reached up and popped the bubble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of what I had pre-written before posting this story. Updates from this point will be slow and dictated by my own procrastination.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter warning. But it's a good one.

Sharp, immediate pain shot through all of his limbs as the memory formed, and he wanted to gasp in shock, but his body wouldn't react to him for the first several moments. His breathing was slow, even, and he opened his eyes slowly, looking around at the memory, arms aching and heaved up over his head, his wrists a mess of agony and-

No, this wasn't right. This was actual pain, this was actual sensation, his arms really _were_ heaved up over his head and ( _ow oh gods in the Farthest Ring **ow**_ ) why did everything hurt? Why could he feel this pain?

His head twisted, slowly, carefully from side to side ( _ow oh gods ow pain agony hurt_ ) and he caught sight of a thousand tiny lacerations up and down his arms, most of them scabbed over, a few bleeding, some others not bleeding but not yet scabbed. Around his wrists and keeping them held up above his head was a pair of shackles, and every tiny movement, every _breath_ brought pain from them as they shifted and pulled at the skin underneath. A part of him knew it was scabbed over, that skin under the metal cuffs, and every movement threatened to pull the scabs free and start them bleeding again.

All over his chest and sides, he could see when he managed to slowly tilt his head downward ( _oh gods let there be nothingness let this pain cease to be_ ) there were even more lacerations in the various stages of healing. He could feel even more across his back, against the rough sensation of the brick wall he was chained to. A wheezing, agonized breath finally pulled free of him, and he closed his eyes again, fighting the urge to wince.

He turned his head again once the pain subsided, sparking a new wave of agony but letting him get a good look around. Once he had it at nearly a ninety degree turn, he saw the other form chained next to him. Where he was bloody, the other form ( _Karkat oh gods Karkat no please no_ ) was half dead. For every laceration he had on him, Karkat seemed to have three. Where he was attempting to move, he could barely see Karkat breathing. Where he was wheezing and hissing in pain, Karkat was silent and still.

His voice came from a dry throat, a scratchy mumble, sending more pain through his face with every twitch of a muscle, "K-Karkat...?" His neck screamed at him not to move it anymore, but he twisted it further, trying to get a better look at the other. No response. "K-Karkat, please.."

Not even a twitch. A cold feeling had settled quite thoroughly in his stomach. ( _No no no no no no no please no this can't be happening_ ) He made himself move, riding through the agony, twisting himself to one side to be turned toward Karkat. When his lower body failed him, he steeled himself and

( _Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK_ ) blinded, couldn't see ( _SHIT MAKE IT ST9P_ ) so much pain ( _I CAN'T_ ) a scraping noise, muffled as if by distance ( _MAKE IT ST9P MAKE IT ST9P MAKE IT ST9P **PLEASE 6Y THE H9RR9RTERR9RS MAKE IT ST9P**_ ) distant screaming, dulled between gritted teeth ( _I'MG9INGT9DIEAGAIN **N9**_ )

and then he was turned, leaning against one hip, toward Karkat. Blood sluiced down his arms freely from beneath the shackles, trickling down over his shoulders. He let out half a wheeze before it degenerated into a choked sob, but he didn't let it go past that. "K-Karkat, a-answer m-m-me."

"Sh'up." the voice was small, and nearly silent, but it was unforgivably even and without tremor, even if it had shortened the two syllables into one.

"N-No, I w-will n-not shut u-up!" The words came out with more bitterness than Kankri thought he even possessed, a hissed retort that twisted him up inside but he couldn't stop it. A trickle of blood passed from his arm down his cheek but he didn't care. His sweater was gone, he was cut up and bleeding, and he honestly felt like death would be the better option when compared to continuing to live in such _agony_ , but that _didn't **fucking** matter_ and he _didn't_ _**fucking** care anymore_.

"Y'shuh." Another two syllables synthesized into one. He could barely see Karkat's chest moving, could see that he was breathing but it was _so shallow_ and he _didn't care if he died_ but Karkat didn't deserve it. Karkat deserved to live and be happy and have someone, _anyone_ care about him as an equal, and at that moment the only one who could do that was him, and _curse the entirety of paradox space_ if he wasn't going to.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Karkat spoke again before he could, "Stuh. Ju'stuh." He watched the other - slowly, so slowly - lift his head and saw the other meet his eyes, and the bitterness he felt himself was reflected there. "P-Pl..."

And it was the tremor that broke him. Kankri watched his face twist, watched it curl into a cruel mixture of despise and desperate, _desperate_ agony and he saw as Karkat **_broke_**. Without a sound, he watched Karkat slump forward, and saw every last bit of fight leave him, saw him bow to death and bid it welcome.

A sob choked itself in his throat as he saw it, silenced by the sound of their cell being opened, of two pairs of heavy feet walking in. Everything in him went hyperaware and he twisted, biting down a scream of pain as he stared up at the two blue bloods that had entered to torment them even more.

" _Why_?!" he demanded of them, finally breaking, every last bit of him aching for death but he didn't _care_ , he just wanted to know _why_. "What did we do?! Why do we deserve this?! Why must you-hrk!" the boot of one of the two landed in his gut and everything in him spasmed, a scream burning holes in his throat but he had lost interest in letting them out anymore. Instead, he kept going, "Wh-Why must you t-torment-augh!" a second blow, this one to his side, sending him twisting and blinding him for a moment with the pain in his wrists.

"I swear to the gods, _shut up._ " One of the bluebloods hissed, and he couldn't be sure which one. "I've had it up to _here_ with your voice. I swear to god, the next words you speak will be repaid with wounds, wound for word."

"F...fuck you...!" the words were out of his mouth before he could even think of pulling back, but instead of more pain, this was met with a long stretch of silence.

"...fine." the blueblood muttered, as his vision cleared and he came to see what was in front of him, "That's two words."

The blueblood was holding two incredibly familiar blades in his hands ( _9h g9d n9 **n9 why d9es he have th9se?!**_ ) and his face was twisted into a strangely delighted, terrifying glee. He flinched automatically, sending another wave of pain through his body, waiting for the new pain to come. His eyes squeezed shut.

A shuffle.

A shifting of weight.

And then, to his left, a muted scream.

Eyes flying open again, entire form writhing, twisting again, spasming; he was sure for a few seconds his heart even stopped. But he saw, and what he saw couldn't be unseen, even through a haze of agonizing pain.

Karkat's entire body was taut, tense like a bowstring that had been pulled too tight, and his mouth was open. Tears flowed shamelessly down the other's cheeks as he continued screaming, his voice cracking and small flecks of spittle and blood flying from his eviscerated throat, but still he screamed. A primal, terrified, unstoppable scream.

Sticking through his hands, one for one, were his sickles, the blades shoved directly through his palms. Two wounds. Two words.

_Fine. That's two words._

_That's two words._

_Two words._

Inside him, something ** _snapped_**.

His scythe appeared in his hands, a long forgotten friend that became a familiar weight against his fingertips, thirty pounds of steel and wood resting against his palms like it had never once left. He twisted his hands, and the blade caught the chain holding him up, freeing his arms. Every movement brought death to him, over and over and over again, but it didn't matter anymore.

He stood, pushing to his feet, blinded by pain but numbed by something else.

Before either of the bluebloods could react to the fact that he not only had a weapon, but had broken free, and was standing, he twisted and brought the scythe around in one fatal motion. A spray of blue blood came to spatter against his face. The blueblood behind fell to a long gash across his stomach, trying to keep his innards inside. The one who had inflicted the wounds stumbled backward, gasping... and then fell in two, upper body completely severed from the lower.

And through it all, Kankri's mind was blank.

He turned, feeling the pain that every movement brought but paying it no mind, and twisted his hand to slice the chain holding Karkat's arms. The younger's hands fell, and he caught the wrists. With a deftness and a precision that bordered on surgical, he pulled the sickles from the other's hands, despite the gasp and renewed, cracked sobs it brought.

He leaned down and tore what was left of his pants, creating long strips of coarse material, and wrapped the wounds. The sickles disappeared, and he knew then that Karkat was at least semi-aware. Aware enough to realize what was going on.

His scythe remained out.

He eased the other up off the ground, twisting around until Karkat's mutilated form rested against his back and shoulders, and heaved him up. The sticky dampness that came to rest against his own mutilated back could have been any kind of mixture between either of their bloods and Karkat's tears.

With the other securely on his back, he grasped his scythe again, and turned to the door, utterly and irrevocably silent for the first time in his entire existence.

* * *

The memory popped, ending as quickly as it had begun, and the Alpha Kankri let out his own choked sob. He pulled his legs up, rolling backwards and to one side until he was clutching his knees and sobbing into them, his back to the void.

He knew what the second bubble would contain, and even if it didn't contain it explicitly he knew what was going to happen. What _had happened_. The terrifying emotions that had coursed turbulently through his system were nothing short of desperate rage, but the terrifying part had been when they stopped. When everything blanked. He had _felt_ it, felt the way his very essence had cracked and shattered and become a quagmire of broken shards, _felt it_ when something... something _wrong_ stepped forward and swept him aside.

He had felt it when the desire to be somewhere safe twisted into something utterly _wrong_ , something that _didn't care anymore_ what it had to do to make it happen. He had felt the undeniable. He had felt the willingness to kill.

And it terrified him to _know_ and feel that willingness within _himself_.

His entire body shook with the revelation, and with the remaining, ghostly pain that had been so real in the memory. He twisted his hands around his wrists and gingerly rubbed at them, trying to ease them, but it didn't go away. His arms curled up over his head, and he shook. Everything ached. Everything ached and he was hoarse and crying and he couldn't bring himself to move and he felt despicably _weak_.

His offshoot had moved.

His offshoot had made himself move when the pain was _real_ and a hundred times worse. It was terrifying and it was terrible _but he had moved_.

And Kankri hated himself for it. Not his offshoot, himself. He gasped and sobbed and shook and tried to fight the tidal wave of emotions, but it washed over him.

And it washed him away.


	6. Chapter 6

He moved slowly, more slowly than normal, hands hanging limply by his sides as he walked. The dream bubbles around him shifted, melding between Prospitan halls and Dersite spires, between deserts and forests and plains and all the many lands that resided in memories.

Conversations around him lulled, wary silences falling.

Curious gazes tracked his movements.

After a while, murmurs. Footsteps following him.

He barely saw anything around him, didn't pay attention to those he passed. His usually purposefully nonchalant stride was down to a trudge. Those he passed noted him like he was some sort of predator, something that appeared out of nowhere hunting conversations to butt into - usually, he was. But today, he couldn't bring himself to care enough to butt in like he usually would. It all seemed so trivial, childish.

His offshoot was a veteran. He wasn't 'like' a veteran, there was no 'like' about it. From what he had seen in the memories he had viewed, the other had been forced to grow up in a way he had never had to. The other had faced trials and tribulations where death was the cost of failure and had decided, no, he couldn't die again, he _wouldn't_. Not for himself, but for another.

His unbeating heart tightened painfully in his chest, and his step faltered, before it found its pace again. Behind him a group had formed, headed by Meenah. He paid them no mind, didn't notice how confused and worried they all actually looked.

He had forced himself to watch the second memory, rode through it holding in a second breakdown. At the end of it he had dismissed the echoes of memory that anyone could access, made them disappear. These memories, this story, was something the other was sharing with him, first and foremost. He wasn't about to let others see it due to an oversight on his part.

The second memory had been, thankfully, beyond a part of what he knew had happened - after the doubtless massacre inside the slave prison, after they had gotten out of the building they were in. It started with them slowly walking back through the town, his eyes still blank, scythe still in his hand, now stained various shades of blue. Karkat was still limply hanging onto him as he was carried, and they left droplets of blood in their wake, crimson and brilliant in the light of the pink moon.

Behind him, nearly a hundred trolls walked from the building, all of them with the mark of slavery on their jugulars. Their captors were gone. One or two had been freed in the massacre and had gone around freeing the others.

Trolls had backed away, some of them whimpering in fear, most of them silent. The brave and stupid coldblooded souls who had taken them down before when they tried to run moved forward to stop them - he sliced them down without flinching. Those of warmer blood castes watched his procession through the town. Many bowed their heads in respect toward him and his precious, precious cargo, and those who followed him. Several raised handsigns - farewell, good fortune, godspeed; despair, regret, apologies.

They wished him the best, anticipated the worst.

Any slave that managed to get free of imprisonment would be on the run for the rest of their existence, and would be killed if caught. There was no such thing as a free escaped slave, just one that was slightly less dead than the others. Once the Empire marked you, you were doomed.

He had walked slowly, head high, eyes forward. The numbers and letters on his neck were crisp and easy to read, ringed in red, irritated skin. Everyone could see them.

No one who tried to stop them lived. No one who lived tried to stop them.

Before long, they were out of the town and into the open wasteland again, and his steps didn't falter, didn't slow. The slaves who had followed him out of the town dispersed, choosing different directions to walk in, until finally it had been just him and Karkat walking in the middle of nowhere, nowhere to go, no destination in mind.

He had finally slowed near a river, and had eased Karkat off his back once they were both in the water, helping wash the other of his wounds and relishing in the cold water against his own skin. He had unwrapped Karkat's hands in silence, submerged them under the water for a few moments, took the other's sylladex from him. He had pulled bandages from the other's sylladex, and carefully wrapped the devastating wounds.

He had remained silent, eyes finally losing their blankness but taking on a pained glint to them, as he tended to the other.

Karkat had been the one to speak, when they were alone, while Kankri was cleaning and wrapping his wounds. He had started softly, voice still cracked and raspy, saying that they were safe, that Kankri could speak. He had slowly grown more insistent, more desperate, begging Kankri to say something, anything. Kankri had looked at him, opened his mouth - _tried_ \- but had snapped it shut again with a pained and sorrowful expression. Karkat's face had crumpled at the implication, and the memory had ended as it had began, in silence.

Kankri was anything but okay after viewing that memory, but the tears were gone. He couldn't bring himself to cry anymore, the first memory he had viewed without permission had been overwhelming in that aspect. For the longest several moments of his afterlife, after it had finished, he had been silent and still, thoughts gone, nothing but an overwhelming confusion coursing through his system. What was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to think, to believe after seeing that? He was capable of killing, sure, had done plenty of that in their session of the game, but it had always been imps and game constructed enemies.

But in the memories, he had killed honest-to-god living trolls. His own species, no matter what difference of history they had gone through. And no matter what anyone believed, no matter who thought that it wasn't technically him that did it, he knew that it at least meant that he - _he_ \- was capable of doing it too. Because his offshoot might not be the same as him, but they had come from the same point in time even if they had gone through different things. If he had been in that spot, it meant he would have probably reacted that way too.

A hand wrapped around one of his wrists and he instinctively flinched as he was stopped and turned around. Porrim let go of him, blinking in confusion and stepping back half a step in surprise - Meenah and Aranea were behind her, Meenah's expression carefully blank and Aranea sporting unabashed worry on her face.

"Kankri?" Aranea spoke up slowly, stepping up next to Porrim, "What's troubling you?"

The fact that she hadn't asked if he was troubled, that she just seemed to know, gave him pause for a moment. But she was so intent that he waved it aside for the moment, meeting blank eyes with blank eyes. She was the healer of the group, of course she could sense when someone needed healing. Obviously.

He needed healing, but not the kind that she provided.

"It's nothing."

The others looked even more confused when he left it at that, and Meenah stepped forward, grabbing his jaw in one hand and turning his head either way to examine it. "...you ain't no imposter, are ya? If so, that a cray-cray good impression a'Kankrab. But ya missed the memo, sucka, basshole talks like there's no tomorrow."

"Meenah, please stop." He brought a hand up and grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away from his face. "I'm not in the mood."

"Kankri, really, what is wrong with you?" Porrim had crossed her arms, "You're acting completely unlike yourself."

"Perhaps I don't wish to be myself at the moment." The words came out harsher than he had intended, and the three girls recoiled as though he had announced the coming of the apocalypse. He turned to leave, but Meenah grabbed his shoulder and turned him around again.

"Ahp-ahp-ahp." She wagged a finger in his face, "Somefin is seariously messed up witchu. You ain't lea-fin until you tell us what's wrong. Conchrary to popular bereef we do actually give a shit aboat ya. Two shits, efin. Hell, eight shits in Raynee's case."

"Meenah..." Aranea sighed, a faint dusting of cerulean forming on her face, though it wasn't clear if it was in embarrassment or exasperation, "I think that's enough."

"What?" Meenah frowned over to the other girl, "I'm jus' sayin'."

"Yes, well," Aranea shook her head, "The point is, Kankri, you don't usually act this way, and frankly we're worried something is wrong. You've been acting rather strangely ever since..." she trailed off, all three girls trading glances, "...well, ever since you started talking to that doomed version of you." She reached a hand toward him, but stopped before touching him, hesitant. Her eyes flicked to his again, but when he leaned slightly away from her she let her hand drop. "We're worried." she said it again, looking at a loss for other words to say.

"Like I said," he started, pulling back away from Meenah, "It's nothing."

"We understand if you don't want to talk about it, but could you at least use those exact words?" Porrim's expression had softened. "Calling it nothing won't change anything. Please understand that we only want to help."

"It's _nothing_ that you can help with." again, the girls recoiled. Porrim looked offended, like he had slapped her. Meenah looked annoyed. Aranea looked nearly as troubled as he honestly felt.

"It's what that basshole offshoot version a'you is talkin' to you aboat, ain't it?" Meenah's words cut straight to his heart, and he flinched. "Mmhm. That's a yes." She crossed her arms, frowning at him, "Do what you do best, Kankrab." her eyes narrowed toward him, "Talk."

"It's none of your concern-"

"Uh-uh, it became our conchcern when you stopped actin' like yourshellfish."

"Please, just-"

"He threatenin' you?"

" _What_?" he stepped back from them, eyes widening in disbelief. How could she think that? Why were the other girls leaning forward intently, waiting for his answer?

"Is. He. Threatening. You." Meenah repeated it slowly, "We all seen what he can do with that scythe a'his. Meanwhale s'been ages since you used yers, an' we all know it. So is he threatenin' you?"

"No!" He shook his head vehemently, feeling sick to his stomach with the thought. "No he is not threatening me, and I would appreciate if you would have a bit more faith in me that I wouldn't submit to such... such...!" he couldn't think of a proper word to express his upset. "...such _preposterous_ things as threats!"

"Kankri, please-" Aranea lifted a hand to grip her necklace, the one that bore his - no, the one that bore the symbol of the scratched him, the Signless. "Please calm down, we're just-"

"Please, just leave me be." he shook his head, a headache forming behind his eyes, "I don't wish to discuss. I don't wish to be coddled or meddled with. I don't wish to speak with anyone at the moment." He turned around and muttered under his breath as he finally managed to step away and keep trudging through the many dream bubbles, "There's nothing I want to say."

The girls shared another look as he walked away, worry etched indiscriminately on their faces. Something was very wrong with Kankri Vantas... very, very wrong indeed.

* * *

Karkat had gotten used to quiet, to whispers at the most, when he passed through. Everyone seemed to notice when he was in a mood and would avoid him on principle, which was good in theory. It was what he had strived to accomplish since he was a wriggler, since he found out what exactly his blood would mean. Anyone who got too close was a potential enemy.

But now, when the universe had been destroyed and the only ones left were the dead and those on his team, he wondered if it really was a good thing. Everyone stayed away, yes, but that proved problematic. He was supposed to be the leader, the one who brought all of his teammates together. Seven of them had died, the rest were drifting farther and farther apart, and he had no idea what to do to get them back together, and he was the one who was supposed to _do_ that, bring them all together, keep them together.

And now everyone stayed away because everyone thought he was _always_ in a mood.

He cast a glance around as he strode through the dream bubbles. Everyone was keeping to themselves, in small pairs and avoiding large attention-grabbing groupings. Most of the pre-scratch trolls he saw were in groupings with themselves, in strange outfits - he figured they were offshoot versions of themselves - and he couldn't see the ones he had come to think were the alphas. Meenah was nowhere to be seen - she was the only one worth noting in his mind, all the others were just... who fucking knew.

He saw Dave and Rose standing together and blinked - usually they didn't sleep at the same time, and when they did they would go off with others rather than each other. Dave had taken to trying to find John, and Rose would usually go find Kanaya. With the two together...

He walked over, and Dave raised a hand in acknowledgement toward him. He nodded slightly back.

"Surrounded by weirdos." Dave noted as soon as Karkat was in range to hear it. Weirdos had come to be Dave's descriptor for doomed offshoots. His intuition was one of the best for sensing when an alpha timeline soul was around them.

"What's going on?" Karkat asked, crossing his arms. Rose gave a slight smile, gesturing around.

"They know something is wrong with the alpha versions of themselves. They're worried."

"And what the fuck exactly is wrong with the alpha dumbasses?"

Rose shrugged her shoulders. Whatever was going on with the pre-Scratch trolls was unknown to her. "As far as I can tell it's something to do with all the excitement surrounding the offshoot who broke the rules." The offshoot Kankri then, the one that apparently shouldn't have been able to exist. "And his alpha."

His eyebrows raised. Something was wrong with the alpha Kankri? That was news to him. He had just thought the other had finally realized no one gave a shit what he talked about and was apparently trying to be more to himself. "What?"

"I don't know, a good deal of them are worried." Rose shrugged again. "Apparently the alpha and the offshoot have been meeting together for some reason, and no one knows what's going on there. After every meeting, the offshoot looks troubled and wanders restlessly, and the alpha has been looking progressively worse each time."

"Probably screws him up in the head." Dave shrugged, "Maybe it's an intimate encounter or some shit. He's supposed to be celibate or something, might bother him. Or maybe it bothers him that the only ass he can get is his own."

"Ew." the word came out short and to the point, demonstrating his honest-to-the-gods disgust that Dave could think of such a possibility. "As much sense as that might make, I don't think that's the case. Last time I talked to Kankri he was close to the weirdo, sure, but there was a mile-high wall of 'no touching' between the two of them. I'd say he was more intimidated by the older weirdass version of himself than enamored."

"Who the fuck uses words like enamored anymore?" Dave arched an eyebrow behind his shades and Karkat scowled.

"Shut the fuck up, Strider."

Rose hummed in the back of her throat in thought, glancing around the three of them at the other offshoots surrounding them. There were hundreds of them, enough for ten or eleven timelines, and she had seen others as well.

Dave let out a slightly intrigued noise, making Karkat turn to see what had grabbed his attention. His eyebrows arched, more in surprise than in impression.

A lone Nepeta had wandered into the bubble where everyone was milling about, glancing around - she had gone god tier in her timeline, evidenced by the dark pink Heart outfit wrapped around her form. Behind her, a troll that no one had seen before walked with her hands clasped behind her back. The stranger wore a loosely fitting shawl of coarsely furred material, wrapped around thin shoulders.

She seemed older than most of those who were milling about, about eleven or twelve sweeps old, maybe thirteen. One of her eyes - the left one - was the pure white of a dead troll while the other seemed off a shade or two, a darker almost bluish shade of white. A human would describe the shade as the color of the sky at noon on Earth. Her hair was shorn short in the back, bangs falling messily into her face and swept to one side of her nose, longer tufts of hair falling beside her cheekbones and nearly to her chin.

It was, he thought, the first time he had seen an adult troll, ever, outside of romcoms and movie posters. And while he didn't think she would have been any kind of famous looks-wise, she _was_ still somewhat nice to look at. She looked tired, but also had a gentle kind of unassuming beauty, with an angular face, thin and almost pixie-ish; if it weren't for the thin signs of laugh and stress lines built up over time, she would have seemed incredibly young.

"She's an alpha timeline ghost." Dave said softly behind him, and his mouth twitched. "The only one in the immediate area."

Karkat noticed that all of the offshoots around them seemed to glance over at the stranger at least once, as if noticing who the alpha was. Maybe it was a 'timey' thing, that offshoots could sense alpha trolls among them and that Dave could sense it.

The Nepeta turned her head toward the stranger, speaking quietly; the stranger replied in kind, giving a small smile, before continuing on her way through the bubble, drifting past all of the small groups until she disappeared into another bubble. The Nepeta drifted farther into the bubble as well, looking around at all the groups as if trying to decide which one to join - Dave waved her over despite Karkat's hesitant frown.

"Who was that?" Dave was right to the point, and the Nepeta giggled.

"Heehee, I think she was a ghost who's been here fur a looong time. She said she kept to herself fur most of the time, drifting through the bubbles, and that she was furom Alternia. She had a..." she brought a finger to her jugular, frowning slightly as if trying to decide what word to use.

"A branding?" Rose offered.

The Nepeta nodded eagerly - that was a good word for it - and gestured wildly, "I don't think Alternia has used brandings since the infurrmal slave trade finally went out of business, around the time of the Summoner's rebellion. At least, I think that's what Aranea said befur!"

"So she's an old ghost." something about the Nepeta's words niggled at the back of Karkat's mind, like he was forgetting something important. Something he had seen but not taken note of, or something along those lines. Maybe just the flicker of peripheral vision.

"Mhm. She got a little mixed up and ended up in my bubble, and I offurred to lead her back to the less purrivate bubbles."

"She was cute," Dave grinned, "You get a name?"

"Strider, she was around twice your miserable age."

"So? I can still want to know her name."

"You're disgusting."

"Love you too, Karkat."

"You're dating Terezi anyway, what the fuck!"

The Nepeta bit back a smile as she watched the bantering two, before giggling slightly and shaking her head, "She didn't say her name and I didn't ask."

"Bah." Dave snapped his fingers as though his master plan had been foiled. "Fat load of good you are. Oh well. Another one slips by, un-ensnared by the cool."

"I'm sure that happens a lot." Rose gave a wry grin, and the two Dersite blonds fell into banter while the Nepeta slipped away, leaving Karkat to his thoughts. He knew he was missing something, something big and obvious and important and that he would kick himself later once he remembered it, but it hovered just outside of range.

Whatever it was, he decided he would deal with it when he remembered.

* * *

\- CURRENT, ALPHA condescendingCabalism [CACC] RIGHT NOW opened a memo on board "dreams n shit" -

CACC: alright suckas listen up  
CACC: got the lochs set on this bitch  
CACC: no past or future bassholes this time this is searious **right now** shit  
CACC: and this is all alpha shit so if your handle dont start with CA somethin or another then gtfo  
CACC: now get your basses in here right this instant

\- CURRENT, ALPHA gravitationallyChallenged [CAGC] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CAGC: who4 m33m33 wh4ts got your kn1ck3rs 1n 4 bunch?  
CACC: cod dam lala stop callin me meemee  
CACC: im searious this time i wont glubbin stand for it

\- CURRENT, ALPHA creativeAesthetic [CACA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CACA: you knowv, its been ages since vwewve used these memos. vwhats the 8IG DEAL anyvways? bubblr suddenly too good for you, princess?  
CACC: ugh stfu cro

\- CACC banned CACA from responding to the memo -

CACC: cod  
CACC: all yalls listen up  
CACC: youre gonna reply to the memo once to let me know yall are payin attention so im not angling in the rocks here  
CACC: and then yall are gonna shut the muthafuck up so i can say my piece  
CACC: raynee and porrim excluded from the shutting up cuz theyre in this explanation too

\- CURRENT, ALPHA tempestuousChurch [CATC] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CATC: :o)

\- CURRENT, ALPHA amorousClawfiend [CAAC] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CAAC: (^=owo=^) < WE'RE HERE! PURRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FUR! 

\- CURRENT, ALPHA awaitingApocalypse [CAAA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

\- CACC banned CAAA from responding to the memo -

CACC: dont need to be seain line after line of troll japanese  
CACC: we all know you can speak in fuckin troll english dama why dont you try it sometime  
CACC: that said thanks meuli and kurly i guess

\- CURRENT, ALPHA amazingTurnabout [CAAT] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CAAT: was that really necessary, doll...? }:(  
CACC: yes it was reely necessary now stfu  
CACC: come on i want everyone in this one  
CACC: everyone needs to hear this shit come on

\- CURRENT, ALPHA canteringTribulation [CACT] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CACT: 8=D < I am awaiting your announcement, your Horseness.  
CACT: 8=D < F*ddlest*%, and forgive my udderly crude language, I meant your Highness.  
CACC: tempted to ban you just for that creepy dumb hoofbeast face thing russie

\- CURRENT, ALPHA galacticArraigner [CAGA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CAGA: I'm certain that sho+uldn't be required.  
CAGA: O+nce they hear the news there will either be silence o+r so+ much chatter that it wo+n't matter who+'s banned o+r no+t.  
CACC: whats takin raynee so long omfg  
CAGA: Give her a mo+ment, I just sent her a message abo+ut this memo+.  
CACC: ughhhhhhhh seariously  
CAGA: Yes, 'sea'rio+usly. She's still wo+rrying herself sick, do+n't rush her.  
CACC: :( raynee stop worryin yourself sick we gonna fix this shit aight

\- CURRENT, ALPHA alleviatingGrief [CAAG] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CAAG: Okay, I'm here. Sorry, I can't really help 8eing worried. Part of who I am and all that. It 8others me to not 8e a8le to help.  
CAGC: wh4t 3x4ctly 1s go1ng on r1ght now th4t h4s 4ll thr33 of you so worr13d?  
CACC: cant answer that until everyones here  
CACC: get your boytoy in here already this is searious i swear  
CAAG: As rudely as she put it, Meenah is right. This is incredi8ly serious.  
CAGA: Quite so+.  
CAGC: F1N3, F1N3, 1'll g3t tun4 1n h3r3 too. th1s b3tt3r b3 th3 most unr4d th1ng or 1t'll b3 4 w4st3 of my t1m3.  
CAGA: Latula, I assure yo+u yo+u will be just as wo+rried as us when yo+u hear it.

\- CURRENT, ALPHA troublesomeAccountability [CATA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo -

CATA: 0K4Y 1 4M H3R3 WH47'5 G01NG 0N  
CAGC: w41t tun4 hon3ypot 1 th1nk w3'r3 st1ll w41t1ng for som3on3.  
CATA: 0H 0K4Y  
CATA: 50RRY  
CACC: nope actually thats everyone  
CAGC: but k4nkr1 1sn't h3r3 y3t.  
CAAG: That's sort of what we're here to talk a8out.  
CAGA: Yes, the three o+f us enco+untered him earlier and it's safe to+ assume that he wo+n't be jo+ining us here.  
CAGC: wh4t?  
CAAT: what?  
CAAC: (^OnO^) < WHAT?  
CATC: Do:  
CATA: WH47 1M C0NFU53D  
CAAG: Yes! That's what has us so trou8led!  
CAAG: He's 8een acting completely unlike himself, ever since that strange offshoot of him appeared.  
CAGC: wh4t th3 h3ll, but h3 4lw4ys butts 1n 4ny t1m3 h3 c4n to l3ctur3 4nd stuff!  
CAGC: wh4t could poss1bly 4ff3ct h1m 3nough to m4k3 h1m stop do1ng th4t?  
CACC: we dont know  
CACC: we saw him mopin around one of the dream bubbles and he wouldnt tell us nofin  
CAGA: He did admit that so+mething was bo+thering him, but beyo+nd that we co+uld get no+thing.  
CAAG: He assured us that he was not 8eing threatened, at least.  
CACC: i dont bereef that for an instant  
CACC: w/e's goin on its def that weird basshole offshoots fault  
CAAG: Meenah, we pro8a8ly shouldn't jump to conclusions right away. It's entirely possi8le that Kankri was telling the truth when he said there was nothing we could do. As much as that might 8other me, perhaps we should respect his words.  
CACC: oh bullcarp youre the most freaked out about this raynee  
CACC: i mean porrima nd i are freakin out too but youre practically losin your shit  
CAGA: Po+rrima?  
CACC: porrim and*** ugh fuckin typos  
CACC: ignore that carp  
CAGA: O+h, I do+n't kno+w, I rather like it.  
CAGA: I did wo+nder why everyo+ne else seemed to+ have a nickname fro+m yo+u and yet I was no+t gifted with o+ne.  
CACC: ho shit youre right i didnt make one up for you before  
CACC: you reely like porrima tho i can come up with something betta if you fish  
CAGA: If I fish?  
CAAG: I 8elieve she meant wish.  
CAAG: #Fish puns #you know  
CAAG: Woah, w8, this isn't 8u88lr, easy to forget that. Sorry.  
CACC: nah s'chool  
CACC: anyway back to the tripoint  
CAAG: Tripoint?  
CACC: double tripoint  
CAAG: ::::) Oh Meenah, you are impossi8le.  
CACC: but ya love me nonetheless  
CACC: but yea  
CACC: point  
CACC: kankrab  
CACC: as much as none of us usually admit it we all actually give a shit about him  
CACC: am i wrong  
CAAT: well... no, 1 guess.  
CACT: 8=D < Of horse not.  
CAAC: (^ono^) < OF COURSE WE ALL CARE ABOUT KANKITTY!  
CATC: :o(  
CAGA: As little o+ften as we express it, it sho+uld no+nethless be understo+o+d that we do+ care abo+ut him.  
CACC: yea that carp right there  
CACC: thats a problem  
CACC: we dont express S)(IT when it comes to kankrab and i got the searious feeling that thats a searious fishue  
CACC: and i know that usually its his fault since we cant get a word in edgewise but still  
CACC: heres what were gonna do  
CACC: operation cardinal gift

* * *

Floating slowly toward the conglomerate of dream bubbles that the Horrorterrors had grouped according to their half of the deal, the shimmering globe of light that revealed a drifting bubble pulsed. It had a yellowish mustardy coloration to it, but occasional sparks of red lightning lit across its surface. On the edge of the dream bubbles that had been grouped together, two doomed offshoots stood vigilant watch as the bubble drifted closer.

"I hope it's them." the elder murmured, wrapping his hands around his elbows and staring out into the darkness. "I really hope it's them." 

The younger placed a hand lightly on the elder's arm, "It will be." And it wasn't enough, it would never be enough, to ease the elder's mind until he saw the one he was waiting for, but for now it would have to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Coding kept taking away everything Meulin and Horuss said when I tried to use the less-than symbol for their quirks. Anyone know the code for that (like how space is " &nb sp;") so it doesn't do that? I had to improvise. Any and all help would be appreciatated.~~ Never mind I figured it out.


	7. Chapter 7

The next several days spent in the dream bubbles (at least, a certain scarred up offshoot Karkat thought it was days, he had seen the alphas appear and disappear several times indicating beginning and ends to sleeping times) were spent hovering in a thick, unfaltering tension. His brother refused to leave the dream bubble edge where the new bubble was easiest to see drifting in. He wasn't willing to drag the other away, even though it had been days and would still be another few hours before it drifted close enough to mesh.

The two offshoots had, he believed, finally meshed into the 'expected occupant' section of dream bubble society. It had taken three weeks, four days, thirteen hours, and seventeen minutes before he could say with some measure of surety that the stares they were getting as they walked by were now simply the stares of wondering what their story was, not those of distrust and wariness over impossibilities. And he was fairly sure that he hadn't been the one to make it happen - that responsibility had lain squarely with his brother, impossibility given form.

A sad sort of fondness shot through his system as he thought of the other. They had faced half a sweep out in the wild, fighting for survival every step of the way; and who knew how long they had spent in captivity, they had both agreed that those weren't memories they would like to dwell on. But beyond that point, past that day when both of them finally, utterly, fully broke down, that had been the point where time finally seemed good enough to remember that it slowed down. They had spent a little over a sweep after that point, growing and healing and coming back to whole with their healers of choice, and that sweep remained as clear and as perfect as he could recall.

He wondered, sometimes, what might have happened if they hadn't been found. They wouldn't have lived as long as they did, and would have came back as broken souls, suddenly thrust back in with, in Kankri's case, old friends who would wonder what the hell was wrong with him and likely push him farther than he could afford to be pushed. He hummed in displeasure at the thought.

"Something on your mind?" he looked around at the quiet question and recoiled in surprise, blinking at the Alpha version of the troll he had been thinking of. It was scary how close the other looked to how he imagined his Kankri would have been, if they hadn't been found when they were.

"You look like shit." he spoke before he could stop himself, and internally winced as he realized how confrontational that would probably sound to the Alpha. This wasn't his Kankri, the one with whom he had gone through so much; he probably couldn't get away with comments like that like he could with his scarred brother. But the alpha just gave a weak, half-hearted smile and nodded.

"I _feel_ like shit." and he knew it must have been something truly horrible because A) Kankri was never that casual about cursing and B) holy shit he agreed that he felt like he looked and he looked _horrible_. Something was definitely up.

He hesitated for half of a second before shaking his head in annoyance and grabbing the other's arm, starting to drag him along, already demanding, "Tell me what's bugging you."

"I don't-"

"Bullshit. I just spent the last two sweeps with another version of you who started out very similar to you, I know when you're bothered and I've even got an idea of what it is that's bothering you. So talk." he didn't stop dragging the other until they were in a quiet, secluded area, at which point he turned around and crossed his arms. "What did you do?"

The Alpha shifted uneasily on his feet, before muttering something softly, "...helefttwobubbles..."

"You watched two memory bubbles without someone there with you?" the offshoot's face tightened in anxious anticipation, already knowing but knowing he had to ask anyway, "...which ones?"

"H-He had just shown you getting captured-"

"And the next two were probably us getting out." He cursed under his breath, before shaking his head and holding up both of his hands, fingers extended. The silvery white scar tissue was in a starburst pattern over his palms, and a thinner slit on the backs of his hands. "It's about these, isn't it?"

A timid nod. He sighed, "Okay. First of all, you need to know that yes, the shit we went through was the closest I ever came to outright giving up and smashing my head in. And yes, this..." he flexed his fingers again, the pointer and middle fingers on his right hand - his dominant hand - not closing completely when he formed fists. "sucked balls with long lasting consequences. But you also need to know that we got through it."

"I-I don't see how you managed, I- I can't imagine going through such a thing, and..."

"Listen." the offshoot uncurled his fists again, resting his left hand on the alpha's shoulder, and was granted with what he thought was an empathetic wince. He wiggled his fingers against the wool-clad shoulder bone, "Doesn't hurt anymore. They're healed as best as they could ever have been. And things got better after that point." his voice softened, "We healed. I don't blame him for it. I don't hold it against him, and I _certainly_ don't hold it against you."

"I..." the alpha turned his face away, and the offshoot frowned.

"What else?"

"...I... wondered." the alpha's voice was halting, unsure. "The other me, your... your me."

"My brother." His voice was even, and he didn't even hesitate to use the term. The alpha blinked a bit, hesitating more to make up for his lack of hesitation.

"Your... brother, then." he cleared his throat, "He was silent."

He could feel the rush of understanding that washed through his soul. Of course, he had only seen the beginning. Of course it would be the worst thing for him to feel ( _oh god, he had felt everything in those memories, he hadn't had a buffer_ ), to be...

How had his brother put it?

"Unable to speak." the words dropped from his tongue subconsciously, and the alpha nodded fervently, face contorted in confusion and pain and unsurety. He stepped forward and grabbed the other around the shoulders, tightly, feeling the bony limbs cling to him and feeling just how close the other was to falling apart. His own voice was shaky when he started to explain.

"It was... traumatic," he began. "I don't think he'd ever killed anything before that point, nothing that couldn't be rationalized anyway. He'd killed imps, but those were came constructs. He'd never killed another troll before. He had been pushed beyond the point of no return, and by the time he crawled his way back there, he was broken beyond belief. And..." he let out a humorless laugh, "He blamed himself for what happened."

The alpha shook and whispered, " _That's two words._ "

"Yeah." he loosened his hold, pushing the other to arm length away and holding his shoulders. "Something in him, something so far down inside him that it _was_ him, broke. It locked up, and... it took his words." He looked downward, a pained expression on his face, "...be ready for a lot of memory bubbles without him speaking." he finally said softly. "It... took a long time for him to heal."

The alpha looked lost, afraid, and the offshoot Karkat pulled away. No matter how much he might have wanted to comfort the alpha, the fact still remained that this wasn't his brother. He had done what he could for the troll who had actually gone through all the pain and suffering with him, and even then he hadn't been what the other needed in order to heal.

He glanced at the Alpha from the corner of his eyes, before looking away again and shifting uneasily, "He'll... be back to the ledge tomorrow." he promised uncertainly, "We're. We're waiting for the bubble drifting in, it... might be a friend that we... made."

Behind a shaky swallow, the alpha nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"L-Listen, go practice with your scythe." the offshoot added earnestly, "I don't know if it'll work for you, but. The exertion always seemed to, well... calm my brother down. When he was bothered." He glanced around again, striving to avoid the alpha's eyes.

"Is the friend-?" the alpha started, voice stilted as if afraid that the other was going to leave or not answer. "Is. Is this friend why..."

"We've both been looking for a few of the friends we made in our timeline." the offshoot explained softly. "And one of them was really... really important to him." He looked up at the alpha, "You'll see in his story. In the memories. I shouldn't, shouldn't tell you." He backed away, "I should go, I was just on a walk but I should get back to him."

"Tell him that... he doesn't need to relive the memories of the slave trade." The alpha muttered, stepping back in a wordless gesture that he could leave.

"I will. And I'll also tell you that... it gets better. Believe me, it gets better." He raised a hand to rest it on the alpha's shoulder for another moment, before pulling back and walking past the other, aware of the slight catch in breath and the words that the other doesn't say.

_I wish I could believe you right now._

* * *

The offshoot dangled his legs out into the void, watching the bubble as it drifted even closer, and his face crumpled slightly in pain. There were red sparks surrounding a yellow bubble, but he couldn't see and hadn't seen any blue sparks with them. As much as he would enjoy having one friend back, the lack of blue sparks meant that... it wasn't the one he had hoped it would be.

He could almost make out features of the landscape inside the bubble, the faint shadowy glow of a darkened sky, the dark season that they had both landed in, with the added glow of a fire somewhere in the middle of the bubble. He stood, stepping back from the edge of the void as it slowly, so slowly, drifted close enough to touch, covering his view of the void on the horizon and melding itself with the rest.

Almost before it was safe, he jumped the gap between the bubbles, lingering in the void between for what seemed like an eternity before his feet landed. A shiver went down his spine once he was safe, and he wrapped his arms around himself. No matter how much time lasted since that first fall, those first terrifying moments of helplessness, being completely ensconced in the void would always be just a little bit disconcerting.

He steadied his feet and rubbed his hands roughly against his arms, willing the chill to disappear as he took the first few steps into the bubble.

Walking beneath a withered tree, he paused, chuckling a little bit to himself. He didn't look up - he didn't have to.

"You look like shit." the male voice up in the tree noted with a laugh.

"You're not much better." He replied, leaning his back against the rough bark and closing his eyes. "Just your bubble?"

"Yeah." There was a thump of feet landing next to him, "She isn't here with you?"

"I was hoping she was sharing with you." He didn't open his eyes for a long moment, though he could somewhat hear and/or sense where the other was standing, just barely outside of his personal space. He knew his voice was pained, and he didn't bother hiding it. The disappointment had curled around his heart like a vice, "Pardon me for having my hopes up."

"Man, I've had my hopes up too, for the last week that I was drifting in." The other's voice was bitter, and he finally opened his eyes to get a good look at the twin of the girl he had been hoping for. Thin, angular features, a round nose, thin mouth. Hair falling in messy bangs into his eyes, one of which held the slight twinge of an old red psionic. A faded mark of an old branding on his neck, bearing the code that he knew by heart, being so close to hers.

_DBA9005._

"Still good to see you, Sorrel." he murmured, stepping forward and wrapping the other in a hug, which was almost greedily returned.

"Is your brother here with you?"

"Yeah, somewhere. He went off for a walk, was tired of waiting with me."

"So... we're literally only missing her." The slightly off note in the other's voice was expected. He was her twin, the red to her blue, and her moirail besides. Being without his other half was bound to be brutal.

Kankri knew that it was brutal for him, and he hadn't even known her a fraction of the time that Sorrel had.

"This was one of your memories?" he gestured around, trying to change the subject. The way the other's face darkened further alerted him that it was a mistake.

"Yeah, it was one of ours. Before the camp."

_Ours_ twisted across the other's tongue like a curse, a word literally coated in acid. Kankri bit his lip and sighed, before squaring his shoulders and leading the other out of the old memory. As much as he himself was hurting at the moment, Sorrel was without more than just a quadrant-mate.

He was without his sister.

* * *

-CURRENT, ALPHA condescendingCabalism [CACC] RIGHT NOW created memo "operaytion cg" on board "dreams n shit"-

CACC: i think that just aboat does it  
CACC: an efin if it dont weve been trawlin through all our old conchversations for a week  
CACC: and conchsiderin how downright mopey kankrab has been  
CACC: i think we shoald put operaytion cardinal gift in mocean schooner rather than freighter

-CURRENT, ALPHA alieviatingGrief [CAAG] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CAAG: Are you sure we have enough? We've found so many 8rilliant gems of quotes so far, we could possi8ly find even more.  
CAAG: I agree that it should happen as soon as possi8le, 8ut this gesture should, prefera8ly without a shadow of a dou8t, remind him that we all care and are all here for him.  
CAAG: 8esides, you seem more hung up a8out this than usual.  
CAAG: You're using a nota8le amount of sea puns. More nota8le than usual, anyway.

-CURRENT, ALPHA amorousClawfiend [CAAC] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CAAC: (=ouo=) < I HAVE TO AGR33 WITH ARANEA HERE! IT'S R33LLY IMPURRTANT!  
CACC: well yea obvs i know that  
CACC: kankrab bein mopey is baysically a searious federal fishue espeseally conchsiderin wave all kinda conchtributed to it in a wave  
CACC: but wave already taken this much time aboat it an i think we cod all agree that wave got to put a stop to it decisively  
CAAC: (=o~o=) < THEN WOULDN'T IT BE BETTER TO MAKE THE GESTURE PURRFECT?

-CURRENT, ALPHA galacticArraigner [CAGA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CAGA: At the mo+ment I am mo+re inclined to+ agree with Meenah o+n this po+int.  
CAGA: Tho+ugh I agree with Aranea that yo+u are intriguingly invested in all o+f this, Meenah. Co+nsidering the puns, and all.  
CACC: course im invested in this  
CACC: we all are  
CACC: but keepin at this project a ours aint gonna make much of a difference  
CACC: perchfection would be great shore  
CACC: but i reely just cannot stand kankrab bein this mopey  
CACC: it aint right  
CAAC: (^=unu=^) < WE CAN AGR33 ON THAT!  
CAAC: (^=UnU=^) < KANKITTY BEING UNHAPPY IS PURRPLEXINGLY CONTAGIOUS!  
CAAC: (^=OMO=^) < I KNOW IT MAKES ME SAD TO SEE HIM UNHAPPY!  
CACC: yea sea you get what im sayin

-CURRENT, ALPHA creativeAesthetic [CACA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CACA: i think wvere all in agreement on that particular opinion  
CACA: dudes like a kicked wvoofbeast wvhen hes upset its legitimately upsetting to all parties invwolvwed  
CACA: and also basically evweryone else wvho evwen isnt  
CACA: probably mostly because wve rarely evwer see him upset yknowv

-CURRENT, ALPHA gravitationallyChallenged [CAGC] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CAGC: tot3z 4gr33m3nt on th4t f4ct.  
CAGC: 1 d1dnt th1nk 1td b3 th1s b4d but k4nny b31ng l3g1t ups3t 1s l1k3  
CAGC: tot3z th3 most unr4d th1ng 3v3r.  
CAGC: 1ts prob4bly th3 f4ct th4t h3s so QU13T!  
CAGC: just k1nd of d1sconc3rt1ng yknow?  
CAAC: (=OnO=) < YEAH!  
CACA: yeah like  
CACA: am i the only one wvho kind of misses listening to him jabbering on  
CACA: evwen if like  
CACA: actually listenin to him wvas a bit of a chore?  
CAGA: No+.  
CAAC: (=o~o=) < NOPE!  
CAGC: b4s1c4lly  
CACC: i dont think we ever gave him the crawdit he deserved  
CAAG: That just goes to show why this gesture MUST 8e a8solutely successful.

-CURRENT, ALPHA awaitingApocalypse [CAAA] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CAAA: 我々は、おそらくできるだけ早くそれを経由して行く必要があります。  
CAAA: さらにそれを先送りするだけで彼のために事態を悪化させる可能性があります。  
CACC: ugh this is what i dont like seaing in a memo  
CACC: TROLL ENGLISH MEGIDO WE KNOW YOU SPEAK IT

-CURRENT, ALPHA amazingTurnabout [CAAT] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CAAT: she's bas1cally agree1ng w1th you though... }:/  
CAAA: にもかかわらず、私はあなたに同意するのが好きではない。  
CAAT: 'even though 1 dont l1ke to agree w1th you'.  
CACC: whale what did she say before then when she was agreein  
CAAT: she was bas1cally say1ng we gotta go through w1th 1t as soon as poss1ble... }:/  
CAAT: and wa1t1ng could make 1t worse for h1m.  
CAAG: 8ut...  
CAAA: 今では安心が必要です  
CAAT: rel1ef 1s needed now.  
CAAT: 1'm 1ncl1ned to agree.  
CAGA: Well that means Damara, myself, Rufio+h and Meenah agree abo+ut giving the gesture as so+o+n as po+ssible.  
CACA: yeah gotta throwv my lots in wvith you all  
CACA: nothin against you aranea but kanny bein dowvn is basically the wvorst evwer  
CAGC: y34 gott4 4gr33 on th4t  
CAAC: (=o~e=) < NOTHING AGAINST ARANEA BUT NO COMMENT ABOUT ME? R33LLY AMPURRA?  
CACA: wvell yeah i basically givwe negativwe shits about wvhat you think leijon  
CAAC: (=eAe=) < UGH!  
CACC: look you two can you take your blackflirtin somewhere else this is a searious memo  
CACC: an as much as i love ships an shit in the ocean sense we gotta fuckin focus here aight  
CACA: wvell wvhich of us is gonna contact him about it i mean one of us is gonna havwe to get him to come to wvhere wve set it up an all  
CACC: i volunteer raynee  
CAAG: What? 8888U  
CACC: well come on you an kankrab are like scary alike an im prawnestly surprised youre not the guys morayeel yet  
CAAG: Um?  
CACC: look im just sayin i could sea it happening aight an i could sea you bein happy with it an if you were inclined then s'chool with me  
CAAG: Well, REGARDLESS of whether or not *I* would like it  
CAAG: Which I'm NOT saying I do!  
CAAG: You're suggesting I solicit him for a quadrant while I respect him and his vow to know he would RATHER NOT! ::::/  
CAAC: (^=ouo=^) < H33H33H33~  
CAAG: No, Meulin, you're not allowed to giggle over that!  
CAAC: (=^u^=) < H33H33, BUT I PAWNESTLY SHIP IT TOO!  
CAAG: Ship it?!  
CAAC: (=ouo=) < CG <> AG OF COURSE! YOU WOULD JUST BE SOOOOOOOOO CUTE TOGEFUR!  
CAAG: 8ut I thought...? I thought you were sort of pale for him?  
CAAC: (^=OuO=^) < AS PALE AS I MAY OR MAY NOT BE OR HAVE B33N FUR KANKITTY, MY SHIPPURRS HEART CANNOT DENY THAT CG <> AG WOULD BE BEYOND ADORABLE!

-CURRENT, ALPHA canteringTribulation [CACT] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo-

CACT: 8=D < Pardon me for asking this, Meulin.  
CACT: 8=D < But are you actually pale for him?  
CACT: 8=D < I feel it should be my responsibility as your moirail to know such a thing.  
CACT: 8=D < Are you dissatisfied with me?  
CAAC: (=ono=) < NO IT'S NOT THAT!  
CAAC: (=unu=) < I MEAN, YEAH, I AM PURRETTY PALE FOR KANKITTY, BUT I THINK EFURRYONE IS TO SOME EXTENT!  
CAAC: (^=o~o^)= < HE GETS ON EFURRYONES NERVES A LOT, BUT HE'S REMARKABLY HARD TO ACTUALLY HATE!  
CAAC: (^=O~O=^) < AND PAWNESTLY ARANEA HAS BETTER CHANCES THAN I DO! FURRANKLY I THINK IF SHE WANTS TO SHE SHOULD GO FUR IT!  
CAAC: (=^u^=) < BESIDES, I'M PURRFECTLY HAPPY WITH YOU AS MY MEOWRAIL, HORUSS!  
CACT: 8=D < I am glad to hear that. I simply hoped to make certain.  
CACT: 8=D < I suppose it was filly of me to worry. You are perfectly entitled to pursue him if you would prefer him over myself, of horse.  
CACT: 8=D < I wouldn't colt it against you.  
CACC: look as cute as your morayeel stuff is and by that i mean not at all seariously  
CACC: back to the fishue at hand please  
CACC: raynee will you be the one to contact him  
CACC: unless meu is leadin up to volunteerin hershellf  
CAAC: (=^///^=); < I THINK I PURROBABLY SHOULDN'T!  
CACC: well what aboat you porrim yer bein awfully quiet over there  
CAGA: I do+ubt my co+ntacting him wo+uld go+ o+ver remarkably well co+nsidering ho+w mo+st o+f o+ur co+nversatio+ns have go+ne.  
CAGA: I'm leaning to+ward casting my vo+te fo+r Aranea as well, yo+u and he are no+rmally o+n quite amicable terms.  
CAAG: You all really think I should 8e the one to talk to him a8out all this?  
CAAA: はい。  
CAAT: pretty much... }:D  
CAGC: y34h! 4r4n34 go1n 1n for th3 s4v3!  
CAGC: tun4 4gr33s too, btw  
CACC: oh yeah why hasnt he come on the memo  
CAGC: uh, b3c4us3 h3's h3r3 w1th m3?  
CAAC: (=^o^=) < SAME REASON FUR PURRLOZ! AND HE AGR33S ABOUT ARANEA!  
CACA: wvell look aranea if you really dont wvant to im on pretty good terms wvith him subjectivwely speakin.  
CACA: i could be the one to tell him if you wvanted.  
CAAG: No, it's fine, I'm flattered that you all think I'm capa8le of all this!  
CAAG: I'm just...  
CAAG: I'm nervous! What if I m8ke things worse? ::::( I don't want to hurt him more!  
CACC: look raynee at this point i dont think things could get much worse  
CACC: and objectively speakin yer the best suited to talk to him  
CACC: prawnestly, all youve gotta do is convince him to sea the fruits of our labors  
CACC: an if ag<>cg happens along the way then bonus points  
CAAG: I just don't want to mess things up at this point! ::::(  
CAGA: Yo+u wo+n't, we're sure.  
CACC: anybouy who disagrees with raynee bein the one to talk to kankrab, speak now or else get out!  
CAAC: (=ouo=) < :PP  
CAGC: h4h4!

CAAC ceased responding to the memo.  
CAGC ceased responding to the memo.

CACA: youll do great doll

CACA  ceased responding to the memo.  
CACT  ceased responding to the memo.

CAAA: あなたは成功します。  
CAAT: what she sa1d! }:)

CAAA  ceased responding to the memo.  
CAAT  ceased responding to the memo.

CAGA: Well that fairly settles it, everyo+ne is in agreement.  
CAGA: Yo+u can do+ it, Aranea.

CAGA  ceased responding to the memo.

CAAG: Well then I suppose I'll simply have to give it my 8est! :::;)

CAAG ceased responding to the memo.

CACC: heck yeah operchraytion cardinal gift is offishially in mocean  
CACC: lets do this brinesuckers  
CACC: all or nofin

CACC ceased responding to the memo.  
CACC closed memo.

* * *

-ALPHA alleviatingGrief [AAG] began trolling ALPHA cardinalGift [ACG] at ??:??-

AAG: Kankri?  
AAG: I realize you are pro8a8ly still upset, and reluctant to discuss it with anyone, 8ut could I still talk to you?  
AAG: It's a matter of some importance.  
AAG: Please respond. Or at least don't 8lock me. ::::(  
AAG: And please don't make me have to come drag you kicking and screaming to make you listen, either. ::::U It really is important!  
AAG: Hello?  
AAG: ::::(

-AAG is now an idle troll!-

ACG: I w9n't 6l9ck y9u 6ut I w9uld really just prefer t9 6e left al9ne with my th9ughts f9r the time 6eing.  
ACG: And I d9n't mean t9 cast aspersi9ns directly t9wards y9u, Aranea, 6ut that preference extends t9 my em9ti9nal state as well.

-AAG is no longer an idle troll!-

AAG: Please, Kankri, just do me this one favor and listen?  
AAG: There's something we all want to show you, if you'd allow us!  
ACG: Please, just...  
ACG: While I appreciate the gestures y9u and the 9thers are 96vi9usly trying t9 make, I am heavily em9ti9nally inv9lved with an9ther issue at the m9ment and it really isn't s9mething y9u 9r any 9f 9ur 9ther friends can d9 anything a69ut.  
ACG: Until it res9lves itself, I  
ACG: I simply d9n't wish t9 6e distur6ed.  
AAG: ::::(  
AAG: Would you at least come and see?  
ACG: ...  
ACG: Alright.

-ALPHA cardinalGift [ACG] ceased trolling ALPHA alleviatingGrief [AAG] at ??:??-

AAG: ::::(

-ALPHA alleviatingGrief [AAG] ceased trolling ALPHA cardinalGift [ACG] at ??:??-

* * *

"Aranea, must you really cover my eyes?"

She couldn't help but smile nervously at him as she nodded and raised the blindfold to his face. "You trust me, don't you?"

"Of course. Explicitly. But I just don't see the reasoning-"

"Just trust." She tied off the blindfold over his eyes, smiling just before his world went dark, "It's a surprise, we don't want it being spoiled, do we?" she checked the knot, "Too tight? Not tight enough? Can you see anything?"

"No, Aranea, I am unable to see anything through the blindfold." His tone was rather as one who had been defeated, and was now being marched through the streets by the victors. Even though it wasn't exactly true, he had wanted to stay alone for the time being. But...well, Aranea had always been nice to him no matter what. Just this once. Then back to his hive.

"Good." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek before taking his hands, pulling him along after her. She glanced over her shoulder every couple of seconds to make sure she was still going the right way, keeping her steps light and steady. When she came in sight of the others, she jerked her head slightly to one side to signal them.

Cronus grinned and settled his guitar in his lap, starting to pluck a few of the strings in a soft repetitive pattern melody.

"Almost there." Aranea smiled sweetly, still nervous, but a bit less so that they were going through with it.

Kankri's ears perked up (figuratively and slightly literally) in confusion at the sudden sound of guitar music. "...Is that Cronus' music?" he asked quietly. It sounded like one of his own personal pieces he had written down himself-Cronus had always shown him his new music, even before Meenah sometimes. He had always wondered why, but never pushed...and now he wondered what was going on.

Aranea took a deep breath and slowed to a stop, maneuvering him to be facing the way they wanted him to look. "We all noticed how down you've been and..."

"It ain't right." Meenah cut in bluntly, "So we put together a li'l somethin' over the last week." She gestured for Aranea to undo the blindfold, and the cerulean troll did so, revealing the project that they had all interacted with.

Covering a sheer cliff side in a memory of Meenah's old Land (the Land of Cliffs and Cuttlefish, she had hated it and barely spent any time doing her quests once she had snatched up God Tier), in all of their handwriting, were hundreds of quotes from the many conversations that they had gotten into with Kankri. Words, laboriously transcribed in the cliff face, each quote with the context around it. Cronus finished the repetitive melody with a flourish and grinned toward the candyblood.

Kankri stared up at it blankly for a long moment, hands hanging loosely by his sides, mind not quite registering what it was he was seeing. Warring emotions took over his thought process, fighting battles in his mind, his heart, and his gut and in the end only serving to make him feel sick. His own words echoed in his mind.

_Perhaps I don't wish to be myself at the moment._

It hadn't been a lie, when he first said it, and it was certainly still true now. So while he knew that the gesture was meant to be a kind one, it nonetheless still felt like a stab to his stomach.

His hands clenched into fists.

He turned on his feet, already walking, knowing that the anger and hurt mixing in his stomach were a dangerous combination, one that he had felt before and never wanted to feel again. He knew he had to get away, because if he didn't - if he was pushed even an inch further - he knew he would do something he would regret.

* * *

_Y9u w9rked 9n this? All 9f y9u? T9gether?_

_Why c9uldn't y9u have d9ne s9mething like this during 9ur game? Why c9uldn't y9u have w9rked t9gether then?_

* * *

Aranea let out a surprised yelp when he twisted, when he stormed past her. "Ka-Kankri?" she asked, shaken, while he hurried away, hands still clenched tightly enough that his trimmed nails still managed to bite into his palms, shoulders starting to shake. "Kankri, what's wrong-?"

She launched herself after him. Back amidst the group, Porrim grabbed hold of Meenah's arm, and Cronus held back Meulin. Latula's expression took on the likeness of a small, fluffy, kicked animal.

"Perhaps we should let Aranea handle this." Porrim murmured.

* * *

_Didn't y9u hear me when I said I d9n't want t9 6e faced with the way I am?_

* * *

A low hiss of air passed through his lips as he brought his hands forward, hands still clenched. With a great deal of effort, he forced his fingers to loosen a millimeter.

As if his strife specibus knew that his instincts were close to broiling over, the coarse, splitting wood of the staff of his scythe appeared between his fingers. The weight was like a long lost friend, and almost automatically his hands moved to twirl the scythe, keeping that weight in constant, ever-changing motion. He found a deserted bubble and took a stance, starting to move with more determined swings, twirls, twists, gritting his teeth together as a thin sheen of sweat formed over his face.

The other Karkat had been right, it did make him feel better. The strain in his muscles almost took his mind off of the turmoil of emotions broiling in his system. His knuckles were turning white around the splintered but strong wood. His arms ached, his legs tensed as he shifted his weight.

A full five minutes into it, he was already nearly drenched in sweat. He barely paused his movements to shift his scythe into one handed control, bringing the other around to tug off the thick woolen sweater. When it was bunched up on one arm, he shifted the control of his scythe to the other hand and tossed it off to the side, before returning to dual handed control of the massive weapon.

It took him several minutes to realize that he was crying, even as he pushed through the brutal workout. His teeth were gritted so hard against one another that he thought, for the barest of seconds, that he might even break his jaw with the sheer pressure.

* * *

_**He** is str9ng._  


_**He** is the 9ne wh9 healed after 6eing s9 th9r9ughly br9ken._

_He's... he's the 9ne I wish I c9uld 6e._

* * *

By the time he finally allowed his movements to slow, every one of his muscles were infused with an all-over ache that seemed to burrow down into his heart and soul. Slivers of scraped skin hung underneath his nails and his palms ached. He was gasping for breath between the heavy breathing his exertion had put him through and the weak sobs that were threatening to break free, but never quite allowed to get that far.

His hands shook as he loosened them, letting his scythe finally disappear into his specibus again. Wheezing softly, he stood still in the middle of the dream bubble, face turned upwards into the darkness above and outside. His shoulders shook.

Two thin arms wrapped around him from behind, tightening around his torso in a fierce hug. A forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, and he could barely feel the sharp points of a certain cerulean troll's horns pricking at the base of his neck.

* * *

_I'm just..._

_I'm just Insuffera6le._

* * *

"Kankri." her voice was shaky, almost as shaky as he was sure his would be. "I don't think I've ever felt you in this much _pain_." He could feel a slight dampness against his back, and realized with a jolt that she was crying too. Her arms tightened even more, as if afraid he would pull away, and he brought his hands up to wrap them around hers.

"Please." she mumbled, and he was sure even she didn't know what she was begging him. He pulled at her wrists, making her loosen her grip, and he could feel her breath catch. But instead of pulling away, he twisted around in her arms and hugged her close, clinging to her as much as she was clinging to him. The feeling she hadn't been able to put to words hung in the air, unsaid.

_Let me help you. Let me understand. Let me **in**._

He nodded into her hair, unable to speak himself.

* * *

Several feet away, three trolls stood near the very edge of the private bubble, peering in. The half-psionic of the trio let out a low whistle, "Wow."

"Things must be changing." the elder candyblood of the three murmured. "I would have never accepted a pale overture like that before everything happened."

"If he's changed this much from just the beginning of the story, imagine how much he'll change once he finds out about her." the younger offshoot sighed. "You'll be back there tomorrow?"

The elder nodded. Not a further word was said among the three, as they turned to leave the two alpha trolls in peace.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the last chapter you guys get for a while, and if it isn't then the next chapter certainly is. I'm leaving for a massive hiatus on September 10th, and the closer I get to that date the more hectic life gets, so the less time I have to write. Cause of hiatus is, fantastically, new job -- I've joined the Air Force, leaving for Basic on that date.

The edge of the bubbles was quiet by the time that the alpha finally joined him again, and he gently patted the spot next to him with his hand. Sorrel had just recently left him, to go off with his brother and be introduced to those who called the dream bubbles their home. He had remained behind, knowing the other would arrive soon enough after being thoroughly calmed by the darling cerulean blood.

"I'm sorry."

The words were out of his mouth before the alpha could say anything, and he could feel the sharp glance that the other cast toward him. "I shouldn't have left those two bubbles for you to see on your own. No matter how difficult it would have been for me to relive it, I should have still been there to be a buffer for you."

"You relive every memory." the alpha's voice was softer than it had been before, stronger than before, but still hesitant. His time with Aranea had done him good, healed him well. "All the pain, and turmoil. You relive them every time."

"..." He nodded, still avoiding the other's gaze and staring out into the void. It was insanely clear by the set of his shoulders that he was thinking of leaping out into the void again. "It's... difficult, without my personal choice of healer. It was even more difficult going through it the first time, with no idea such a healer existed."

"Who was your healer?" he could still feel the alpha's gaze on him, and still refused to turn and meet it. "Please..."

"You'll meet her soon." He waved his hands to call up the bubbles, considering them for a moment. He pulled two of them forward, hesitated, then pulled a third and fourth. "Today." He dismissed the nineteen that remained back, and looked at the four again, before glancing over at the Alpha.

The alpha was staring back, a new look behind the white sheen over his eyes. Something monumental had changed, something in his very core. In his eyes, the offshoot could see some of the strength that healing after being broken gained a troll. His time with Aranea had been more productive than he first thought.

"Let me take some of the pain from you." The Alpha intoned, and after a moment, the offshoot nodded. Another moment of silence stretched between them, watching each other's expressions and judging each other's willingness to continue what they had started.

"This is the time in between." He finally intoned softly, turning his gaze away again and popping the first of that meeting's bubbles. "Before we got where we could be healed." The memory blurred into existence around them, the small grove of trees and the river of the memory preceding, melting like colors of a watercolor painting and solidifying into sights and sounds. With another wave, the offshoot started it moving.

* * *

They had spent three days in the grove, hiding from the sunlight under the thick cover of the leaves. Most of the other lacerations on the younger troll's body had stopped bleeding after the first day, and he had spent the second day in a daze of blood loss while his body furiously worked to regain its strength. Half of the time he could remember had been rife with nightmares and horrorterrors, and the other half had been full of dizziness and silence, _too much silence_.

Kankri had spent those first two days endlessly tending to Karkat's wounds, alternately pulling things from Karkat's own sylladex and making due with whatever he had on hand. Though he wasn't a master survivalist, the fact that the many wounds were starting to stitch themselves together without infection was evidence that he knew enough of what he was doing. He tended most often to Karkat's hands, changing the makeshift bandages every few hours as they were soaked through.

At one point in his hazy memory, Karkat could swear the other had changed his bandages and then disappeared for hours on end. He had returned much later, limping and bleeding anew and with a black eye, but had emptied his sylladex to reveal a very basic medkit, two coarse blankets, a canteen full of fresh water and a small pile of fruit. Without a word, he set the items near Karkat, changed his bandages again, and covered him up with a blanket. Karkat didn't even have the strength to wonder who he stole the items from, let alone how.

By the time that Karkat had come out of his haze, Kankri had finally passed out from what had to be two straight days and longer of wakefulness. From his position leaning against the immense tree they were stationed near, with his scythe in his lap, he had drifted off while watching for possible dangers.

On the third night, this night, a thin trickle of red dashed the water in the river where Karkat finally huddled, cursing under his breath, his hands submerged once again.

They were running out of bandages, even with washing those that they had been using before. Most of them, predictably, went to the wounds in his hands. His fingers trembled beneath the water, and his eyes were crinkled in a perpetual wince of pain as the water pulled more of the bright red from the wounds.

He had tried to hold his sickles, take the guard duty, but found that he couldn't close his hands. The wounds had been opened and left him like this, cursing down at his hands under his breath.

"Fuck..." the final hissed word ended a rather impressive tirade against the wounds themselves, and against the assholes in the slave trade, and against his sickles. A glance up at the other candyblood (still conked out under the tree) made his stomach twist. If he wanted to place blame anywhere then he could very much blame the other as it had been his big mouth that caused the wounds in the first place, but...

Flashes of hazy memory, the other bent over his form, wiping down his feverish forehead and biting his lip in concentration as he changed the bandages again and again and again, passed before his eyes even as he watched the other sleeping. The worried, _guilty_ glint that had hovered in the other's eyes in every wavering moment of consciousness. The shadows that rested under the other's eyes even now, after at least three hours asleep.

Karkat couldn't blame him.

He looked back down to the wisps of red slipping into the water from his hands, to the way the bandages were now soaking and floating around them in the current. With a sigh, he pulled his hands out of the water and winced again, unwrapping them with another soft curse.

The sound of the other moving pulled his eyes up again, and he met the bleary eyed gaze of the troll who had done this to him, and yet done so much for him. Kankri was already shifting out of his spot where he had fallen asleep, moving over to him, grabbing at his hands with that same worried look on his face. Karkat bit down the vitriol on his tongue and tried to pull his hands away.

"Go back to sleep, Kankri, you need it."

Kankri grabbed his hands again, not meeting his eyes, and began to slowly but deliberately finish unwrapping the bandages. He barely took a moment to pull new bandages out of his sylladex (truly new _bandages_ , not just scraps of cloth they had torn from the remains of their clothes) before he was redressing his hands again.

"Kankri- Kankri it's fine-"

A sharp shake of the head was his answer, and with skill that betrayed just how much practice the other had gotten over the last couple of days, he tied off the bandages. Just tight enough that he couldn't move his hands, but not tight enough that he would lose blood flow to his fingers. A slightly off color flush hovered under the other's cheeks, and it was obvious that he was enduring a fever - one not unlike the one that Karkat had finally broken through.

For the time being, the bandages were clean white of woven lusus fur, and a stark contrast to the slowly darkening tone of his gray skin. In time, he knew, they'd come to be soaked with crimson red.

When the other finally pulled away from his hands, he leaned down to trail one finger through the dirt, a pained look on his face as he meticulously carved out letters in the riverbank.

_your eighth wriggling day is soon i think_

An empty sort of feeling settled in Karkat's stomach as he looked down at the words, as he took in their meanings both literal and secondary. With a soft sigh, he nodded and looked up at the other again. The swirls of gray in his eyes were beginning to be pockmarked with crimson.

* * *

"It's already to that point?" The alpha looked surprised, "It's already been a sweep? But..." he looked toward the offshoot with a confused expression, "We've gone through so few memories."

"That's because I'm only showing you the most important ones." The offshoot's voice was soft and mildly strained, and the alpha frowned. A hand lifted to rest on the offshoot's shoulders, and though a grimace passed over the alpha's face briefly, some of the tenseness eased out of the offshoot's frame. "If I were showing you every memory that had even a cursory importance, we'd be here for just as long as Karkat and I were down there."

"But..."

"Look, we spent around two thirds of a sweep out in the middle of nowhere without getting caught, and most of that was just hunting, finding water, trying to survive as long as possible before we would have to supplement our food supply. Neither of us wants to remember exactly how long we were in the slave trade before we broke, but it was around a quarter sweep and it was mostly just..." He shivered, looking down at his lap. "It was torture."

The alpha bit his lip, looking away with a nod of understanding. "Ah. Okay."

The memory seemed to shift and melt away around them, with the offshoot waving his hand to dismiss it. "After this point," he muttered, reaching for the next bubble with a strange mix of trepidation and excitement, "I got hit with the fever that Karkat had been fighting off, and we were more or less helpless. He couldn't use his sickles, and I was too sick to do anything." The second bubble popped under his fingers and the Alpha was momentarily overcome by the immense dizziness that accompanied the fever that had been described.

Then the fever eased and the offshoot let out a soft sort of sigh, closing his eyes. "One more." he murmured, a tone of quiet longing in his voice. "One more."

* * *

There was a hazy sort of fuzz overtaking the memory, a slightly warm feeling to the colors, evidence of the fever. Kankri was awake despite of it, hands clasped around the staff of his scythe, face ruddy with the heat of his body trying to heal itself. Every few seconds, the colors around them would swirl and out of the bounds of the memory, the Alpha winced. "This is dizzying." he murmured, as the memory started.

They were huddled under the great tree they had stationed themselves by, both of them tense as they leaned back against the bark, shaking slightly. They had heard voices in the distance, which would only mean other trolls would find them, and considering they had their blood color tattooed on their necks now... neither of them was very hopeful that it was going to be a friendly troll.

As if friendly trolls existed on Alternia. There were only trolls who might not kill you. That was as far as friendly went.

Kankri was barely standing, leaning heavily against the scythe in his hands and the tree behind him, breathing uneven. The dizzying effect was getting worse, and it was clear that he was pushing himself to stay awake as the only one able to defend them at the moment, and that fact was making everything worse.

Karkat was beside him and a little bit in front of him, fingers twitching nervously, even though his heavily bandaged hands were more like clubs than claws. His teeth were bared, dull fangs gritted harshly against one another. A nervous twitch had started in his neck, his heartbeat racing just under the skin, pulsing under the tattoo over his jugular. His eyes flickered here and there, and the tips of his ears twitched slightly as he turned his head, trying to pinpoint the direction the sounds were coming from.

The leaves rustled around them, and Karkat turned to their right just in time to see a troll pushing through the underbrush, speaking over his shoulder to some companion still farther back in the trees. "The trail leads this way- I think whoever they were they probably tried to lose their trail in the riv-" The intruder's head turned around and he cut himself off as he caught sight of the two of them. Letting out a sound of surprise and delight, he started toward them, only stopping when Karkat let out a downright feral growl.

The intruding troll held up his hands, to show that they were empty. Keeping his face pointed toward them (one eye was bandaged over, though a few small red sparks did break free of the bandaging), he lowered his voice to a wary, but calm tone. "Hey, it's okay- It's okay, I'm not going to do anything more to hurt you. You guys escaped that slave facility, right?" His eye flickered to Kankri's scythe, keeping an eye on it, "We were sent to try and find the trolls that got out-"

"Not helping your case." Karkat growled, holding his club-like hands up in a defensive posture. Kankri shifted on his feet, tightening his grip on the scythe, and shifted his weight, into ready pose. Though his eyes were hazed over, his mouth was thinned into a dangerously calm line.

"No-no, you don't understand." The troll raised his hands more, more defensive, and turned his head away from them tilting it to bare his neck. A form of incredible trust and submission, baring one's neck to another troll was basically as confident as you could get.

But it wasn't the assurance that the other seemed to feel that they wouldn't attack him that won them over. Instead, it was the marks stretching along the other's jugular that made Kankri lean back against the tree again, looking a bit green around the ears. A familiar branding. Seven numbers and letters.

"We're here to help." The troll - a yellowblood, by the branding - continued softly, turning back toward them, hands still up, "You're both in about the usual state that we find trolls in." His mouth curled into a grin, "Though it _is_ impressive to find you already out of the slave compound."

Karkat's teeth remained bared and his eyes remained wary, but a slight inconsistency in Kankri's breath made him turn them from the troll in front of them. A worried look passed over his face for half of a second when he saw the dazed, not quite there look on the other's face. Though his own jugular was now pointed at the yellowblood - a faintly surprised look passed over the intruder's face, seeing the letter-number combination - Karkat's attention was immediately, completely focused on Kankri.

He raised one of the heavily bandaged hands and brushed his fingertips against Kankri's face, wincing slightly at the intense fever. Kankri, for his part, looked like he was about to collapse.

After a few seconds, Karkat's head snapped back around to the yellowblood. "You swear you'll help us?"

"On my life." The yellowblood intoned, dropping his hands to his sides. "Most of us are like you. Escapees." His voice was jocular, but the look in his eye was serious. A few more red sparks lit off of his horns, accentuating the import to his words. "And from the look of those healing wounds, and that shoddy bandage job, you _both_ are in need of help."

* * *

The memory faded out with a chuckle behind the two, from the same voice as the troll who had found them. The alpha looked around, eyes wide and blinking, and caught sight of the red eyed psionic. "So this is where you sequester yourself away. Telling Mr. Alpha the magical story of our timeline?" He waltzed forward, grinning toward the Alpha, "Sorrel Reylin. Also known as 'that little pest' and 'pain in the ass'."

"Pain in _my_ ass, more like." The offshoot rolled his eyes, shifting his weight until he was standing again, leaving the Alpha with his legs dangling off the edge. He shoved the other's shoulder good naturedly. "I take it Karkat has finished introducing you to everyone?"

"Heh, yeah, major fiasco when he intro'd me to li'l Condy. Good to know she was just as _delightful_ at my age as she was as an adult."

"Oh god, _please_ tell me you weren't blackflirting with Meenah." The offshoot looked embarrassed for the other's sake.

"Hey, she started it. You should be more concerned with the fact that your brother was pretty blatantly waxing ashen. In that, weird, Karkat, denying the fact way."

"...did he threaten to shove his sickles in your guts?"

"Down my throat. He's getting more creative!"

The alpha looked a bit awkward, but shifted to his feet and held out his hand toward the other, "Nice to meet you, I... suppose?"

"Oh I'll change your mind about that." Sorrel said blandly, still grinning, as he clasped the other's hand. "Most trolls can't stand my personal brand of uniqueness."

"You mean the fact that you're a little piece of shit who doesn't hesitate to say stuff that really shouldn't be said?" The offshoot's voice was just as bland, even if his mouth had curled into an almost affectionate grin. He shoved at the other again, "Come on, get lost. Next memory is..." His smile fell a little. Sorrel nodded.

"A'right, I'm gonna go try and blackflirt with ickle Condy again. Maybe we can escape the ashen advances of your steel gray brother. I have a good feeling about my chances here."

"If you don't end up with three prong wounds in your chest, you have my blessing." The offshoot made an eyeroll motion with his head before gesturing again for the other to get lost. "I really want to get to the next two memories done."

"Get back to looking?" Sorrel asked, rhetorically. "I get it, I get it. You could combine the two memories if they're the two I'm thinking of, you know. You and Kitkat getting healed, right?"

"See you _later_ , Sorrel." the offshoot said pointedly, still smiling.

"Later, Kri-kri." Sorrel raised a hand in farewell, "Later, Alpha." He walked off with a slight spring in his step, thin sparks of red lighting off of his horns. The offshoot sighed a little, looking at the two bubbles floating before them, before lightly gesturing for them to merge.

"...He seems nice."

"Heh, shut up, I know." The offshoot shoved at his shoulder with a fond grin.

The alpha laughed and shoved him back, before gesturing to the bubble floating before them. "Shall we? I admit I'm curious about your healer of choice."

* * *

The sound of footsteps coming up behind him was warning enough this time for Karkat to jerk around with his teeth in a snarl, though he made himself stay still despite the trolls that were approaching him with nonchalant grins on their faces. The offshoot him that was such a massive pain for a new guy, and the psionic ghost that had just recently appeared that seemed to always be trailing behind either the offshoot him or the offshoot Kankri. Great.

"Wow, you weren't joking, Kitkat." The psionic let out a laugh, "I'm glad I met you after you grew out of being like this!"

"Despite what I went through to grow out of it, yeah." the offshoot him chuckled, a fond sort of annoyance crossing his face as he glanced over at the other, the nickname seeming to bother him slightly. The psionic immediately shoved his shoulder gently, tilting his head to bare his neck toward the offshoot him.

The tattoo of letters and numbers caught the alpha's eye immediately this time, though he didn't let that notice change the defensive set of his shoulders. The gesture was what caught his attention more than anything. For a troll to bare his neck to another was a symbol of the utmost trust, and...

He was shocked when the offshoot him brushed his hair out of the way and returned the gesture, to see a similar letter-number tattoo on the other him's jugular. How had he not seen that in his last encounter with the offshoot ghost? They both had brandings - but those brandings were markings of the Alternian slave trade! Alternia was gone, how...?

He hadn't had any interest in finding out what the fuck was up with the two offshoots that had appeared nearly a human month ago. He had no idea what had gone on with them, he only knew that apparently they had spent who-knew-how-long only trusting each other. But seeing that... he had to admit his curiosity was just the tiniest bit piqued.

"You know I'm just kidding you, Kitkat-"

"And you know I don't appreciate that nickname but that doesn't stop you from using it, and that doesn't stop me from being negatively affected by your words."

"Well fine, pull the trigger card."

"I'm not pulling the trigger card!"

"You are totally pulling the trigger card."

"...okay fine I'm pulling the trigger card, asshole."

The Alpha curled his lip in annoyance, both at the fact that they both seemed to be more or less ignoring him and the fact that he knew they had come over to talk to him. The fact that the other him was acting so... so... _Kankri-ish_ didn't help at all.

"Hate to interrupt your romantic chit-chat, asswipes - except, no, I actually don't - but there better be a reason you assholes are coming to bother me." The words were falling off of his tongue by habit now. He was actually rather amazed at how much vitriol he managed to shove into the words when he was already distracted and unsettled.

He wasn't sure what it was about this particular offshoot him that set him so on edge. He was still a Karkat, and therefore a pain in his ass, and infuriating in the most instinctive way possible, but...

But, but, but. It always came down to that word. This other him was gaining friends among trolls he hadn't even considered before. This offshoot was amicable with Meenah, protective of the offshoot Kankri, downright chummy with various of the other pre-scratch trolls - and they found his company enjoyable. If Karkat were to be completely honest with himself, he might have even felt the tiniest twinge of jealousy over the fact.

And even though he pretty much despised the other him on principle, the other never seemed to return the animosity like most of the other offshoot hims would. Half of the time it was like the other him thought his petty platonic hatred of himself _amusing_.

Like right now. An infuriating smile was creeping onto the other's face, and the psionic next to him chuckled indulgently.

"I didn't think it was possible." the psionic muttered, "Hating yourself like that. Though I'm not surprised you're the one who can do that."

"Not _me_ ," the offshoot gave a slightly affronted look, as if it was a personal insult. " _I_ outgrew that childish self-hatred."

" _Sure_ you did."

The offshoot shook his head, shoving the psionic with one hand, "Lay off, Sorrel. We're here for a reason, remember?"

"Of course I remember, I'm the one who suggested it."

"Here for what?" The alpha frowned crossing his arms in a purely defensive gesture. The offshoot grinned cheekily, bringing up a hand and waving it through the air, forming memory bubbles as he went.

"Time for a little self-education, little me."

* * *

The offshoot Kankri leaned back, closing his eyes with a faint, gentle smile forming on his face, letting out a happy sigh - the alpha could immediately sense the calmer, gentler aura that surrounded them in the forming memory.

Everything was still hazy with fever, and had settled into the darkness of unconsciousness for a moment ("I passed out from fever on the way to the camp," the offshoot murmured quietly, still smiling as if the memory itself was enough to heal all of the stress the former memories had inflicted on him) but behind the faint red haze of body heat, a gentle blue glow enveloped everything. A soft voice was humming gently, muffled but slowly becoming clearer as he swam toward consciousness. The dull ache that had plagued his body since their escape was prominent on his skin, and for a moment he was afraid his wounds had opened again.

But the ache was slowly fading ( _am I dying again?_ ) and as it dissipated, he began to feel something other than the never ending pain. Fingertips brushing over his skin, a sort of electric, crackling feeling ( _a psionic?_ ), and the faint prickle of clawtips. On occasion another spark of pain was wrought by those clawtips, tearing open wounds that he knew instinctively had healed wrong, but always right after the crackling-electric-psionic feeling came and the pain would ease again, then disappear entirely.

_Tearing into his skin. Tearing open wounds._

_Bright red blood._

His eyes cracked open, and he attempted to tense himself up defensively, though none of his muscles seemed to be in the mood to cooperate with him. The humming continued, unabated, and the form above him ( _female voice - female troll_ ) didn't seem to have realized that he had woken.

The blue glow that had drifted through his unconscious thoughts was more prevalent now that he had opened his eyes, even just a little. He took a few seconds, keeping his breathing slow and even, to take stock of what was going on around him.

He appeared to be in a roomy cloth tent, quiet and unoccupied other than him, his company, and her singing. He was lain in a well-worn cot, and the troll currently - _healing?_ \- him was settled comfortably on her knees, sat atop a wooden crate that was in a similar state of wear and tear next to him. Littered here and there atop other crates were containers of what appeared to be medicine, and there were two other cots set up around the roomy area.

The troll beside him was, in fact, female, and he looked her over for a long few minutes. She was of average height, he guessed; delicate, angular, almost pixieish features. Long-fingered hands, glowing a faint blue - and a psionic eye that was glowing the same dull blue shade. A tug of hazy familiarity crossed his mind as he looked at her face, but he brushed it aside for the moment.

Her hair fell in heavy bangs around her face, in front of her ears, and he could faintly see that it was shorn unevenly short in the back. At the base of her skull, over her jugular, was a familiar and foreign code. _DBA9004_ , a yellowblood, more orange than the known gemini shade.

That hazy feeling of recognition returned again, and he took another good look at her face. It was more effeminate, and her eye was blue rather than red, but she looked rather like the psionic that had helped them.

At the moment he made the realization, her eyes swept upwards and met his. After the first initial surprise lit across her face, she gave a soft smile and pulled her hands back.

"Just about done here." she said slowly, conversationally, "You'll probably have some aches and pains for a while until your body replenishes its blood supply, and you'll have to come in for a few checks while that's going on, but for the most part everything's taken care of."

He blinked owlishly. His fingers twitched, and for a second he briefly considered the possibility of needing his scythe.

"You'll also probably have some... intense, stiffness, for a bit. That tends to occur after a healing, but it'll go away in an hour or so." She shifted her weight, freeing her legs out from under herself and standing up, "Would you like to be brought to your bloodmate?"

His bloodmate. Karkat. His eyes widened minutely and he nodded, taking on a near frantic intensity for a second until she smiled again. Her hands returned to his arm, helping him sit up and, when he stumbled, helping him stand. She fit herself under his arm with surprising ease and half-carried his limping form out of the tent.

Though he could tell that his body was healed, movement still brought deep-set ache from his muscles, and she hadn't been wrong to warn him of stiffness. But her voice continued, a soft, melodic croon that eased him through the movements as she led him out into the moonlight.

He didn't miss the chance to look around, and took in the sight of dozens of tents, similar to the one that they had just left. An even greater number of trolls made the area bustle with activity, and though he was sure there were more trolls than tents, everyone seemed cheerful and high-spirited. Trolls of all ages, from wriggler barely past 6 sweeps to adult verging on 20 sweeps, all of them able bodied and moving purposefully through the camp... he noticed a few of them casting glances his way, but those that looked would just smile and wave and move on.

He looked down at himself for a moment, still shirtless with tattered, ripped remains of what used to be his pants, skin pockmarked with thick white scar lines. His abdomen had formed into tight corded musculature over the past several perigees, and he was surprised.

He looked up and around again, quietly considering everyone around them, as the girl continued shuffling along through the camp. Trolls made room for them, shifted to the sides of the open area between tents as they passed, nodding sometimes (he had a feeling they were nodding to the girl helping him along - possibly a well known face, though it wasn't particularly notable). Before long, she directed them both to a slightly larger tent, shouldering it open and ducking them both under the heavy fabric.

He stumbled briefly, but her hand pressed against his chest and steadied him as she walked them both over to one of the boxes nearby. This tent, unlike the other, was occupied. Two adult trolls were quietly conversing with one another as one of them worked on a patient ( _Karkat, oh gods Karkat_ ). The male, dual-horns signifying him a gemini, had his hands glowing in a similar blue shade as the girl holding him up had used. Thin sparks arced off of his horns.

Kankri couldn't see Karkat clearly, but from the soft, slightly lisped words of the male healing him, he could guess what state his bloodmate ( _humans call male blood-siblings brothers_ , he thought briefly, _so... brother_ ) was in. The tattered, red-stained bandages that had been around Karkat's hands were in a pile beside the cot, and the older gemini troll seemed to be working on the wounds in his hands.

"Thshame, really." the male murmured, "He'th obviouthly very thtrong, and a hard worker if the calloutheth on his handth are anything to go by."

"Yes, a shame that he and his bloodmate were caught by the slave trade." The adult jadeblood (he would recognize those horns anywhere) murmured back, dabbing a damp washcloth over Karkat's face. The jerking of Karkat's muscles made him sure that the younger was awake, if uncharacteristically silent while the adults tended to him.

"I'm here." the goldblooded girl spoke up as she stepped away from him, "And finished with my task. Can I help in any way, Saelec?"

"We're finithing up here," the gemini replied in a tired sort of voice. "There'th not much elthe we can do."

"But-" Karkat's voice finally came, a strained whisper, "My hand-"

"The muthcle'th torn, wriggler. It will need to heal on it'th own. I healed the other."

Kankri gave one wheezing breath as Karkat pushed up, covered in new scars and staring down at his hands. The wounds looked as though they were healed, but he could see that when the other clenched his hands, while the left closed completely, the right only closed halfway. A bitter expression had formed on Karkat's face.

"Perfect. Fucking perfect." he muttered, staring at the still injured hand. "And it had to be my dominant hand too." He tilted his head back up, eyes landing on Kankri and meeting his gaze.

"You're safe here," The girl smiled, helping the two adults clean everything up as the memory began to fade around them, "You have time to heal."

* * *

The alpha sat back, frowning faintly to himself as he thought, before turning to look at the contented smile that was still lingering on the offshoot's face. He knew he wanted to say something, but he didn't know how to put it. "She... wasn't what I expected."

The offshoot looked around, the smile falling slightly, "You expected?"

"I-I thought, considering how you were acting, when you were talking about her-"

"You thought she would be someone like Latula?"

The surety of the accusation made the alpha shrink, shoulders inching toward his ears. As he had before, the offshoot had known what his thought process was and made the same connection he had.

"She's different from... Latula, yes." he mumbled, trying not to double-die of embarrassment for being caught so quickly.

"Look," the offshoot chuckled, "I know she isn't your... _our_ original sense of beauty." he looked out into the void again, his face dropping into a tired sort of acceptance, "And at first I didn't feel any attraction to her, other than the faint thought that perhaps I could trust this troll, who wasn't flinching at healing me. But... you'll see," He chuckled, the two words a familiar promise between them now, "just how beautiful she really is."

He pushed to his feet, glancing out longingly into the void one last time before turning and leaving without a further word.

The alpha made no attempt to stop him.


End file.
